Social, Cultural and Systemic Barriers to Child Justice Reform: Lessons from Vietnam

Le Thu Dao,Yvon Dandurand

doi:10.1177/14732254211036196

Abstract

The implementation of child justice reforms often lingers or fails because it has not been systematically planned, properly communicated or adequately resourced. There are also many social, cultural and systemic barriers to child justice reforms, but these barriers are often poorly understood and meekly addressed. Progress in implementing rights-based comprehensive child justice systems has been slow, and there is a growing interest in understanding why, in many countries, child justice reforms have made relatively little progress over the past 30 years. This article reviews the experience of child justice reforms in Vietnam and discusses the broader question of policy transfer, specifically the translation of international children’s rights standards and norms into national child justice laws and policies.

Highlights

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe observed that despite the panoply of international and regional standards providing a well-established framework for modelling juvenile justice, there is a considerable and continuing dissonance between the rhetoric of human rights discourse and the reality of juvenile justice interventions, in particular juvenile detention, for many children. (Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, 2014: para 3)
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child frequently deplores the poor enforcement of human rights standards in the area of child justice and child detention
This article reviews the experience of child justice reforms in Vietnam and discusses the broader question of policy transfer, the translation of international children’s rights standards and norms into national child justice laws and policies

Summary

Introduction

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe observed that despite the panoply of international and regional standards providing a well-established framework for modelling juvenile justice, there is a considerable and continuing dissonance between the rhetoric of human rights discourse and the reality of juvenile justice interventions, in particular juvenile detention, for many children. (Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, 2014: para 3)The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child frequently deplores the poor enforcement of human rights standards in the area of child justice and child detention. The country engaged in reforms dealing generally with justice for children and resulting in important amendments to the Penal Code, the Criminal Procedure Code and the Law on Organization of Courts, among others.

Results

Conclusion