In Pham v. Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] UKSC 19, the UK Supreme Court held that the refusal of the Vietnamese Government to recognise Minh Pham's nationality was not a decision “by operation of law.” It did so by forming its own view on the meaning of socialist law. In doing so, it took an ecumenical approach to the relationship between the government and its judiciary. In fact, law and legality take on new and distinctive meanings in socialist jurisdictions with important implications for decisions like Pham. This paper draws the concept of legality into sharper relief engaging with new reserach on China and Vietnam in Fu, Gillespie, Nicholson and Bartlett’s Socialist Law in Socialist East Asia.

Our 2020 Annual Conference was scheduled to be held at the University of Wrocław in Poland on July 9-11, 2020.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our next Annual Conference will take place from July 8-10, 2021. The conference, "ICON•S Mundo", will be held online. Details regarding the organization of the 2021 Conference will follow soon.
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