Stepping into the 21st century, the social flourishment and open-minded thoughts of marriage have been impacting the leading-edge family background of having children. Nevertheless, as a constant issue, many children are born to unwed couples, also known as "illegitimate children", and thus, might be considered as belonging to no one or having no legal relationship with any parents. Although the national law systems' improvement has been protecting illegitimate children's rights and obligations similarly to children, out-of-wedlock children have to adapt specific conditions to gain inherent benefits, like having the birth certificate recording their true parents' names.
Thus, the legal identification of parents for illegitimate children plays a vital role in defending them against all forms of bullies or discrimination and advance the children's well-beings so that they would not be socially detrimental. This effort also legalizes these children's individual certificates related to the family profile.
Accordingly, this paper concerns the two main issues: (i) the conflict of determining parental subsidies or child support for illegitimate children. In Vietnam, the trial practices have been unfolding unofficial legal arguments to state that parents have no support obligations during the period of undetermined identity of illegitimate children; and (ii) the difficulty in enforcing the parental identification procedure for illegitimate children's identity when their natural father/mother or both parents have passed away. Still, the Vietnamese legal procedures to identify and resolve cases of the children's deceased parents have multiple hardships due to lack of competent enforcement mechanism.
On these bases, this dissertation concentrates on studying the issues of legal parental identification for illegitimate children to address the disadvantages. Especially, the dissertation delves into the nonmarital children's identity in cases of deceased parents and support right by analyzing and evaluating legal institutions under Vietnamese laws, e.g., Civil Code, Law on Marriage and Family, Law on Civil Status, Children Law, Decrees, and Circulars, etc. Thereafter, the dissertation studies California and Korean law through the study of specific cases, and draws out articles and regulations on the parental identification for illegitimate children that could be learned from to improve the Vietnamese law. All in all, the dissertation shall propound some detailed proposals to improve the Vietnamese law's authorities on ensuring the illegitimate children's legal rights and well-beings.