Today I came across a piece of news from the Vietnam News Agency: the National Assembly is reviewing a draft amendment to the Penal Code, proposing to abolish the death penalty for crimes such as drug trafficking and rape of minors, reducing the number of capital offenses nationwide from the current 10 to just 4.
What does 4 mean? Japan currently retains 19 capital offenses nominally, Singapore over 30, the United States (states plus federal) over 40, and South Korea still has over 80 in its legal code. Vietnam’s deletion key is indeed pressed quite hard.
However, beyond the act of “reduction” itself, I am more interested in the reasons behind it.
The Origins of Vietnam’s Legal System
When it comes to Vietnam’s criminal law, the first impression of many legal professionals is often “familiar yet unfamiliar.” Familiar because Vietnamese law has natural ties with ancient China; unfamiliar because it has been overlain with too many layers of complex modern history.
In ancient times, the influence of the Chinese legal tradition on Vietnam was almost all-encompassing. From the 15th-century Le Dynasty’s Quốc triều hình luật (National Penal Code), which heavily drew on the Tang Code, to the 19th-century Nguyen Dynasty’s Hoàng Việt luật lệ (Imperial Vietnamese Statutes), which followed Ming dynasty models and referenced the Great Ming Code – from the “five punishments” to the “ten abominations,” from reverence for filial piety to the maintenance of ritual order, traditional Vietnamese criminal law was essentially an extension of the Chinese legal tradition in Southeast Asia.
But in the late 19th century, French colonizers intervened and forcibly introduced Western continental law principles of legality and codified formats; and in the second half of the 20th century, the modern socialist legal system and related legal concepts left a deep imprint on Vietnam.
This criminal law framework, which superimposed a traditional Chinese legal foundation, French codified format, and modern socialist legal concepts, has long been known for its “rigorous system” and “emphasis on order.”
Yet it is precisely this country with such a deep criminal law heritage that has recently made such a noteworthy move in adjusting its penal policy.
What Are the 4 Remaining Offenses?
I checked through the successive revisions of Vietnam’s Penal Code and found that this has been a decades-long “subtraction”: 44 in 1985, 29 in 1999, 22 in 2009, 18 in 2015, 10 in 2025, and now, within less than a year, it is proposed to cut to 4.
Will it continue to decrease? I tend to think it won’t in the short term. Looking closely at the remaining 4, they are essentially the “last line of defense” for the death penalty in modern states.
Treason and terrorism – needless to say, these involve regime security and public order底线, offenses that no country with the death penalty would abandon. In the draft’s explanation, Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security also stated that this is “institutionalizing the Party’s guidelines” – the red line is the red line.
Intentional homicide – this falls under the “most serious crimes” in international legal theory, consistent with the UN conventions’ standard that “the death penalty shall be imposed only for the most serious crimes.” Although Vietnam is only an observer state to that convention, it has been moving toward that framework over the years. Moreover, Article 123 of Vietnam’s Penal Code lists 17 aggravating circumstances for intentional homicide, including somewhat vague concepts like “hooligan nature” and “despicable acts,” with a starting sentence of 12 years, leaving sufficient deterrence space in judicial practice.
Illegal production of narcotics – this is interesting. Vietnam sits on the Southeast Asian drug trafficking corridor, and domestic drug issues have always been severe. However, this draft removes drug trafficking and smuggling from the death penalty list, but retains “production” as the only capital drug offense. I interpret this as preserving deterrence at the source – a “grab the upstream, loosen the mid-to-downstream” strategy.
Which Offenses Are Being Abolished?
Vietnam’s biggest move this time is to abolish the death penalty for drug trafficking and rape of minors. Among these, many people’s biggest question is: since Vietnam has such rampant drug problems, why abolish the death penalty for trafficking?
I also focused on this when reading the draft’s explanation. Minister of Public Security Lương Tam Quang’s reasoning was: to “further distinguish criminal responsibility, ensuring that penalties and punishments correspond to the nature and severity of the criminal act.” In plain language, previously trafficking was automatically sentenced to death, but it turned out that many who were executed were just low-level runners for major drug lords, while the real kingpins remained untouchable. Abolishing the death penalty for trafficking and replacing it with life imprisonment plus heavy asset forfeiture might actually cut off the financial chains and hit the real pain points.
This logic is not new – similar discussions exist in Chinese legal academia. But Vietnam actually daring to make this cut is indeed a big step.
However, the National Assembly’s Committee on Legal and Judicial Affairs also noted in its review report that some committee members “hold a cautious attitude” toward abolishing the death penalty for drug trafficking and rape of minors, fearing it might weaken the deterrent effect of criminal law. So whether the draft will pass as is remains uncertain.
The West Is Not Entirely Convinced
Regarding Vietnam’s move, I also looked at reactions from Western media and international observers. I found several pieces, and the pattern was the same old “first affirm, then question.”
The criticisms focus on two points: first, Vietnam has not published actual execution data for many years, so outsiders cannot assess the real effect; second, among the retained offenses, the 17 aggravating circumstances for intentional homicide, including vague concepts like “hooligan nature,” still leave substantial judicial discretion.
Vietnam’s response, in various forms, boils down to one sentence: the life of the law lies in enforcement, and numerical progress is still progress; as for judicial discretion, they are simultaneously revising the Criminal Procedure Code to strengthen the Supreme Court’s review authority.
Whether this response is convincing is debatable. But I think, rather than obsessing over whether Vietnam has “progressed” or “not progressed,” it is better to see this as a more complex balancing act.
A Balancing Act
To me, Vietnam’s penal adjustment this time is indeed thought-provoking. On one hand, it aligns with international rules in legislative technique, streamlining offenses to improve its rule-of-law image and trade environment – both CPTPP and the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) have requirements for legal transparency, and this timing is no coincidence. On the other hand, in actual governance, it must hold the basic line of state order and public security, hence the four red lines of treason, terrorism, intentional homicide, and drug production are never loosened.
The draft is expected to be voted on at the National Assembly session in October, and if passed, it will take effect in March next year. But even if passed, what is more worth observing is how it is implemented at the judicial level. Changing the law is one thing; how precedents evolve and how enforcement operates – that is the real answer.
This article is not meant to defend Vietnam, nor to follow Western criticism. I simply think that beyond the grand narrative of “abolishing the death penalty,” every country’s reform has its own specific political and public security calculus to make. Whether Vietnam’s subtraction is a genuine reform or a carefully staged performance – time will tell.