Originially from: World Arbitration and Mediation Review (WAMR)

Arbitration in Vietnam
BY
LE CONG DINH
LL.B. (Business Law), Hanoi Law School, 1989;
LL.B. (Private Int’l Law), Hochiminh City Law
School, 1995; M.B.A., Centre Franco-Vietnamien,
1996; LL.M. (Business Law), Hochiminh City Law
School, 1998; Diplôme Supérieur (3e Cycle),
Université Panthéon-Assas (Paris II), 1999; LL.M.,
Tulane University Law School, 2000; and J.S.D.
Candidate at Tulane University Law School.
Having already abandoned a centrally planned economy
and embraced the “mixed market” policies of the reform program,
Vietnam’s legal system is undergoing rapid and dramatic
development. This being said, matters have developed sufficiently
since 1986 to permit one to speak of an increasingly coherent
system of adjudication of commercial disputes. The government,
with the assistance of various international organizations, is
devoting substantial efforts to the development of a more
consistent and accessible system of legislative publication, storage,
and dissemination.
Nevertheless, some words of caution are warranted. In
some legal areas which are important to business and investment,
such as contracts and dispute resolution, the law exists, but the
system of enforcement has not been implemented. Furthermore,
individual interpretation of the law by authorities at different levels
in the government can greatly affect the manner in which the law is
put into practice. The concept of precedent is non-existent, and is
not recognized under socialist legal principles.
After providing a general overview of Vietnamese law and
its judicial system, the article focuses upon the practice of
commercial arbitration in Vietnam. The objective is supply the
reader with sufficient information to understand arbitration’s role
in the Vietnamese legal process and in the country’s likely future
economic development.