Legal education of the Indochina Law School in Vietnam under the French colonial period and lessons learnt

Abstract

Indochina’s Law School was the first (and possibly only) legal educational institution in Vietnam during the French colonial period. When first established, Indochina Law School’s founding mission was to be the largest research and science dissemination center and university in the Far East. Despite going through many ups and downs, and contrary to the wishes of the French, the  school has contributed to the production of talented and erudite figures, who had a significant impact on Vietnamese jurisprudence during and after the French colonial period. This paper examines the development of Indochina Law School and its legal education activities during the school’s heydays (from 1931 to 1945) in order to draw lessons for legal education of the current law schools in Vietnam, including Hanoi Law University.