Legal Reform in the Contemporary Socialist World

Legal Reform in the Contemporary Socialist World explores four decades of legal reform in the socialist countries of China, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea, and Cuba from a comparative perspective. Spanning the late 1970s to the present, it examines various projects, methods, strategies, contents, driving forces, and limitations of legislative reform, administrative reform, judicial reform, and reform of the legal profession. Legal reform in these countries is the project of the political elite to improve the legal system while retaining its core socialist principles. It is carried out through legislative enactments, amendments, and replacements, which the political elite adopt using incremental strategies to reform the legal system sporadically or systematically.

Socialist legal reform is animated by the political aspiration to create the rule of law, the impact of social-economic change, and the influence of transnational and comparative law. Despite significant reforms, the socialist principles of the legal systems in these countries largely remain intact. This legal reform, however, varies considerably by country.

Legal Reform in the Contemporary Socialist World offers a holistic view of understudied jurisdictions in comparative law, essential for anyone studying or working in these areas in law, politics, or policy.

Ngoc Son Bui, Professor of Asian Laws, University of Oxford

Ngoc Son Bui is Professor of Asian Laws at the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, and a Fellow of St Hugh’s College, Oxford. He has previously held an academic position at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, a research position at the National University of Singapore, and visiting positions at Chulalongkorn, Harvard, Melbourne, Singapore Management University, University of Hong Kong, and Tsinghua law schools. He works on comparative & constitutional law in Asia. He is the author of Constitutional Change in the Contemporary Socialist World (OUP 2020) and a series co-editor of the Oxford Studies in Asian Laws.