Environmental pollution has not only caused damage to property and human health and life but also exerted great adverse impacts on the national economy. Criminal laws of Vietnam contain provisions on handling on legal persons’ acts of polluting the environment, covering the examination of their penal liability.

At present, the 2015 Penal Code (revised in 2017) (the Code), as the only source of Vietnam’s penal law, clearly expresses the State’s policies to protect women and translates into domestic laws international standards on the protection of women.

The Law on Execution of Criminal Judgments was passed in 2019 by the National Assembly[1], significantly contributing to the institutionalization of the Party’s guidelines and the State’s humanitarian policy toward convicts and inmates. Since then, the execution of criminal judgments has recorded notable progresses; security and safety of detention and custody facilities have been better guaranteed; and the correctional education of prisoners has become more effective, thus facilitating the exercise of their human rights.

Vietnam’s National Assembly (NA) last month passed the Law Amending and Supplementing a Number of Articles of the Criminal Procedure Code (the Code) to be effective on December 1, 2021. A key reason for the NA to consider and pass these revised provisions right at a single session was to fulfill Vietnam’s commitments under the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Below we look into the Law’s provisions that have been designed to meet the CPTPP’s requirements on taking the initiative to initiate legal action to protect industrial property rights over trademarks and geographical indications.

In the context of extensive international integration, besides diplomatic missions and consular offices as key parties to diplomatic relations, the State, state agencies, companies, state enterprises, sole proprietorships, multinational corporations, etc., will be involved more and more actively in economic, civil and commercial transactions overseas. Therefore, civil, economic and commercial disputes involving foreign elements will inevitably occur and need to be settled by competent authorities with proper jurisdiction. In principle, their rulings or awards are to be respected and executed, except cases eligible for immunity from execution under international and domestic laws. Many economic and commercial cases involving the aforesaid subjects have recently been recorded in Vietnam in the field of private international law. However, the execution of court judgments and rulings for these cases has encountered not a few difficulties and problems, especially those caused by legal institutions. This article provides an overview of Vietnamese laws as well as international regulations on immunity from measures to enforce court judgments and rulings.

Vietnam has set the goals of protecting and promoting the rights of the child in all domains of social life and translated relevant provisions of those conventions into its domestic laws. The 2013 Constitution contains provisions to best protect rights and interests of under-18 persons in all aspects of social life, including criminal proceedings. As the disclosure of information pertaining to privacy of under-18 persons may cause serious physical and mental consequences to them, the 2015 Criminal Procedure Code, revised in 2017, (the Code) and relevant sub-law documents all provide the keeping of secrets of under-18 persons in criminal proceedings. Below the author would like to take some insights into those provisions before making recommendations to improve the criminal procedure law and relevant laws regarding this issue.

The draft Law Revising a Number of Articles of the Intellectual Property Law has been put for public opinions and is expected to be submitted to the 15th National Assembly for consideration and comments at the 2nd session, and passage at the 3rd session. The amendments and supplementations focus on seven main groups of policies recently approved by the National Assembly, including improvement of the effectiveness of the intellectual property (IP) rights protection. This article introduces some models of specialized IP court in a number of countries in the world and makes some recommendations for Vietnam to improve the effectiveness of its IP rights protection activities.

This article highlights new provisions of the 2015 Penal Code and the 2019 Law on Execution of Criminal Judgments[1] regarding the two judicial remedies of compulsory medical treatment and education at reformatories applied to juvenile offenders in Vietnam.

The adversarial process in trials enshrined in the 2013 Constitution is a milestone marking changes in viewpoints and approaches during judicial reform toward an independent and transparent judicial system. This article introduces the adversarial process in trials as recognized in the Constitution and concretized in the procedural laws of Vietnam.

The article first reviews the United Nations Convention against Corruption in terms of criminalization of corruption. It then criticizes limitations and inadequacies of the 1999 Penal Code of Vietnam regarding corruption crimes in comparison with standards set by the UNCAC.