ABSTRACT
Introduction Between 2011 and 2013, Vietnam’s party-state initiated a constitutional reform process that invited different social actors into the political space. While ultimately no far-reaching reform was incorporated into the 2013 revision of the constitution, the strenuous public debates over constitutional amendments demonstrated potential for change in the two most contested arenas: the rule of law and human rights. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc in the early 1990s, as a one-party-state Vietnam has made a concerted effort to adapt its socialist theoretical foundations to a market economy and substantially transform key legacies. Since then, the “socialist-oriented” market economy and the socialist law-based state concepts have been hailed as the most important theoretical achievements of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV). CPV theorists have claimed the doctrine that Vietnam is a socialist law-based state as a distilled version of the rule of law toward which Vietnam is moving (see e.g., Hoang Chi Bao 2002; Tran Ngoc Hien 2008; Tran Ngoc Duong 2011). Building on the legacy of “socialist legality,” the doctrine has been given multiple meanings and dimensions. It is developing concurrently as a fundamental value, a basic principle of the constitution, and a set of institutions to support its realization. However, the human rights regime based on the concept is insufficient and inconsistent, exposing disconnects with international human rights laws that Vietnam recognizes. Rather than evolving independently, the current dynamic discourse on human rights has emerged in Vietnam within this broader context. The literature on the concept of socialist law-based state and human rights in Vietnam tends not to be directly on point. Little attention has been paid to the subtle shifts in the human rights discourse taking place within the general context of the socialist law-based state or to the implications of these shifts. This chapter argues that the changing discourse on human rights in Vietnam is likely to transcend the socialist law-based state concept to create a new human rights identity, and the identity-shaping process will have major implications for the evolution of human rights there as both an ideal and a regime. The process is characterized by contestations and challenges of ideas and values by both party-state and non-state actors that are unprecedented in Vietnamese political and legal discourse.
