Vietnam’s official newsagency reports
Lawyers gather in HCM City for Asia-Pacific conference
VietNamNet Bridge ? More than 250 lawyers from 28 countries in the Asia-Pacific region and 100 Vietnamese lawyers are attending the 22nd LAWASIA Conference which opened in HCM City on Monday.
The annual event, which is being held by the HCM City Bar Association and the Law Association for Asia and the Pacific (LAWASIA), has also attracted 34 chief judges.
On the agenda of the four-day conference is a gamut of issues, including managing legal practice, corporate crime, franchising, intellectual property, the global financial crisis and its impact on Asia, as well as laws relating to immigration, environment, insurance and energy.
This is the second time the association has organised a LAWASIA conference which offers opportunities for legal practitioners and scholars to gather and discuss issues of mutual interest, said Nguyen Dang Trung, president of HCM City Bar Association.
“The challenging times presented by the global financial crisis have created the need for legal professionals to remain informed of developments in the immediate region,” said Glenn Ferguson, president of LAWASIA.
“We anticipate this conference will provide for each of us the opportunity to learn from the experiences of our neighbours and in turn provide more informed advice to our clients and colleagues.”
The first day of the conference yesterday, November 10, had eleven sessions focusing on issues such as judicial activism as a necessary element of judging; a child’s voice in court proceedings; and providing legal assistance to vulnerable communities.
The sessions also discussed governing laws and dispute resolution in cross border franchising in Viet Nam and corporate governance in the era of globalisation.
Formed in 1966, the international organisation of lawyers’ associations, which gathers individual lawyers, judges, legal academics, and others, has more than 1,500 members from more than 50 countries and territories in the Asia-Pacific region.
The HCM City Bar Association, which was established in 1987, includes 2,009 lawyers out of the country’s total number of 5,000, according to Trung.
It has established relations with two regional associations, the Inter-Pacific Bar Association and LAWASIA, and two global associations, the International Association of Lawyers and International Bar Association.
