Viet Nam's Dynamic Approach to Lawfare

This article reviews the emergence of "lawfare" as a term in vogue in recent years. Despite its complexity, lawfare is widely used by scholars and policy-makers in a disparaging and polemical sense. Efforts have been made to attribute a neutral tone to the term with a clearer analytical framework. Taking Viet Nam and the South China Sea disputes as an illustration, the article probes whether and how a small, peripheral country works out a lawfare strategy. It finds that Viet Nam has employed elements of lawfare strategy to counter China's expansionist claims at sea by recalibrating its national interests and legal positions over time. Lawfare is a long game, yet it holds out hope for Viet Nam, a peripheral country, amidst intense superpower rivalry.