Vietnam's Land Law Reform: Is it Enough?

Apparently no one, including its drafters, is entirely happy with the revision of Vietnam's Land Law that's been circulated for comment by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. Experts, indigenous and foreign, have detailed problems they see with the current law and what needs to be done to fix it. The National Assembly argued about the draft for two days in October and may vote on a revised text in May. Another scenario has the arguments continuing until the legislature's next session late this year. Vietnam's newspapers have been full of reports and carefully calibrated comment, while in parallel a free-wheeling discussion animates the less well-supervised blogosphere. With all that as prologue, February 1 began an official two month period of public comment. The debate so far is lively, not an orchestrated propaganda exercise on the Stalinist model. It is addressing problems that bear importantly, perhaps decisively, on the vitality of Vietnam's political process and the health of its economy. Some commentators have argued that the process is a critical test of the Communist regime's ability to repair its mistakes, to "fix itself."