Implementing Human Rights through Administrative Law Reforms: The Potential in China and Vietnam

This work addresses NGOs, government authorities and other institutions and organizations involved in development assistance and international co-operation concerning human rights, good governance, corruption control and related issues. Through its descriptions and assessments of administrative law, norms on good governance as well as complaints and supervision modalities of pre-modern China, Vietnam, Korea and Japan, the publication is also of interest to researchers on the general history of law of the East Asian region and specifically on administrative law in the region. Firstly, the author analyses administrative law as an avenue for increased implementation of human rights in national law. This is addressed in relation to social, economic and cultural rights in relation to civil and political rights. The author discusses the role of abuse of power regarding the observance of good governance and the implementation of human rights internally in the executive's administration and externally in relation to individuals, companies and organizations. The observance and implementation of human rights is of relevance not only to third world and transnational states, but also to industrialized and democratic states. Here, this is analysed through an assessment and operative listing of key UN-standards of relevance to the executive, and principles for justice in administration formulated by the Council of Europe. The author describes the background for the current reforms of administrative law that the People's Republic of China and Vietnam have undertaken since the late 1980s. These reforms are analysed with regard to their potential for increasing good governance in accordance with human rights. In the same context, pre-modern East Asian norms concerning good governance and supervisory institutions are discussed along with the potential of the late-20th century reforms of administrative law in the PRC and Vietnam. Finally, the author considers the issue of national ownership in relation to legal reforms and good goverance, and presents an analytical tool and basic model for identifying domestic norms and institutions that may serve as roots for such reforms.

Table of Contents:
Delimination of subject - definitions, methodology and structure; theory; administrative law, human rights, justice in administration and good governance; China of the tradition - administrative law, administrative governance and the normative sources; regional perspectives on law and governance in the tradition; late 20th century reforms of administrative law in the PRC; normative cultures - cross-provincial comparison; late 20th-century Vietnamese reform of administrative law - regional perspectives on remedies and indigenization of law reforms; the confucianized legal system in modern East Asian rights consciousness and the role of law; final assessments and conclusions.