Indian and Aboriginal Law Commons^™

India's Companies Act Of 2013: A Governance Shift Into The Sunlight, Sarah C. Alvy

Sarah C Alvy

Recently enacted, the Companies Act of 2013 overhauls India’s corporate governance framework and has left the country anticipating whether implementation of the Act will be successful in attaining its policy objectives. This Article examines and critiques three provisions of the Act, including mandatory female board directorship, corporate social responsibility, and auditor rotation. The Article uses global business case studies to argue, from a managerial perspective, that each provision will enhance corporate governance and oversight, resulting in a more efficient Indian capital market. Also, the Article comments on how the U.S. could emulate India in adopting a regulation designed ...

Can Tribal Courts Issue Domestic Relations Orders That Will Be Honored By Pension Plan Administrators Under Erisa?, Colin Osiecki

Northwestern University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Forfeiting Federalism: The Faustian Pact With Big Tobacco, Ryan Dreveskracht

Ryan Dreveskracht

This article discusses the effects of the largest legal settlement in United States history: the so-called Master Settlement Agreement, or “MSA.” Part I discusses the settlement generally, and its intended effect on the U.S. tobacco market. Parts II through IV discuss the unintended consequences of the settlement. Specifically, Part II considers how states got into their current disarray, and how a perceived state windfall of billions of dollars ended up putting states on what by all accounts now appears to be very real risk of insolvency. Part III examines how the major tobacco companies are using the states’ dire ...

Two Hundred Years On: A Reexamination Of The Acquisition Of Australia, Nii Lante Wallace-Bruce

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

An Unfinished Joruney: Arctic Indigenous Rights, Lands, And Jurisdiction?, Tony Penikett

Seattle University Law Review

The indigenous rights movement has been defined as a struggle for land and jurisdiction. Over the last forty years, American and Canadian governments made much progress on the land question in the Arctic and sub-Arctic; however, from an irrational fear of the unknown, politicians in Washington, D.C. and Ottawa have effectively blocked the pathways to aboriginal jurisdiction or self-government. During the late-twentieth century in the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut, as well as in Nisga’a territory, indigenous governments negotiated local government powers, but continent-wide progress on the question of indigenous jurisdiction has stalled. This Article considers the formation ...

Extracting More Than Resources: Human Security And Arctic Indigenous Women, Victoria Sweet

Seattle University Law Review

The circumpolar Arctic region is at the forefront of rapid change, and with change come potential threats to human security. Numerous factors determine what makes a state, a community, or an individual feel secure. For example, extractive industry development can bring economic benefits to an area, but these development projects also bring security concerns, including potential human rights violations. While security concerns connected with development projects have been studied in southern hemisphere countries and countries classified as “developing,” concerns connected with extractive industry development projects in “developed” countries like the United States have received little attention. This Article will change ...

Conceptualizing Climate Justice In Kivalina, Marissa Knodel

Seattle University Law Review

Due to climate change, indigenous communities in Alaska are forced to develop in ways that adversely affect their livelihoods and culture. For example, decreases in sea ice, increases in the frequency of sea storms, and melting permafrost have so accelerated the erosion of one barrier island that an entire village faces relocation. These indigenous communities, which have contributed little to causing climate change, are limited in their ability to adapt. After examining three broad questions about the effects of climate change on indigenous communities, this Article reaches four preliminary conclusion about relocation as a climate adaptation strategy and its relations ...

Fisheries Governance And How It Fits Within The Broader Arctic Governance, Adam Soliman

Seattle University Law Review

Climate change is causing the Arctic ice to melt and fish stocks to change their migration patterns. These changes are increasing access to Arctic fisheries, as well as moving other fish stocks to the north. To prevent the depletion of fish stocks and to protect the Arctic environment, proper fisheries governance requires collaboration between nation-states and specific populations. Fisheries present unique governance and management issues. Unlike other natural resources, fish stocks do not stay in the same place. The non-stationary nature of fish stocks, along with shared sovereignty over the oceans, make coordination between stakeholders the most difficult as well ...

Changes In Latitudes Call For Changes In Attitudes: Towards Recognition Of A Global Imperative For Stewardship, Not Exploitation, In The Arctic, Taylor Simpson-Wood

Seattle University Law Review

For more than two centuries, the imagination of mariners has been captured by visions of a trade route across the Arctic Sea allowing vessels to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Known as the Northwest Passage, this fabled route is a time- and money-saving sea lane running from the Atlantic Ocean Arctic Circle to the Pacific Ocean Arctic Circle. Now, the thinning of the ice in the Arctic may transform what was once only a dream into a reality. New shipping lanes linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are likely to open between 2040 and 2059. If loss ...

Oil And Gas In America's Arctic Ocean: Past Problems Counsel Precaution, Michael Levine, Peter Van Tuyn, Layla Hughes

Seattle University Law Review

This Article provides context for the controversy facing government agencies charged with making decisions about the future of America’s Arctic Ocean. It then distill themes that, if addressed, could help further a lasting solution for this region that respects its natural and human values while crafting a reasonable path forward for decisions about development. First, this Article offers background about the region, the threats facing it, and some of the challenges in managing the natural resources there. Second, it provides an overview of the legal framework through which the United States government makes decisions about whether and under what ...

United States Policy And Norwegian Commercial Whaling: A Cooperative Approach, Jamie Nystrom

Seattle University Law Review

Both the United States and Norway have a long history of commercial whaling, but the mantle of dominance in the whaling world passed from the United States to Norway in the mid-nineteenth century. As demand for whale-based products declined in the United States over the past century, and environmentalism and conservationism became more popular public ideologies, the United States shifted from a pro-whaling nation to, effectively, an anti-whaling nation. Norway, however, has continued to be the only nation that openly engages in commercial whaling for profit, albeit on a smaller scale in comparison to historical practices. The United States’ past ...

The Cross-Fertilization Of Human Rights Norms And Indigenous Peoples In Africa: From Endorois And Beyond, Derek M K Inman

The International Indigenous Policy Journal

Beginning in the 20th century, international law expanded beyond law between nations to eventually embrace the concept of human rights. However, until recently, human rights efforts were focused mostly on individuals, their rights and the obligations of the state in question. Indigenous peoples, on the other hand, have always articulated their collective rights and, to their credit, achieved notable success.

While there is no doubt that these achievements should be applauded, what is also of interest, and deserves further study, are the ways in which human rights jurisprudence concerning Indigenous peoples’ collective rights intermingle, cross-fertilize, and integrate. This dynamic relationship ...

Implementation Of Indigenous Rights In Russia: Shortcomings And Recent Developments, Alexandra Tomaselli, Anna Koch

The International Indigenous Policy Journal

After more than 20 years of active engagement in Indigenous issues, RAIPON, the umbrella organization of the Indigenous peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Far East, was ordered to suspend its activities by the Russian Ministry of Justice in November 2012. Eventually, this order was withdrawn provided that RAIPON changed its statute, which subsequently took place in early 2013. Why such sudden and definitive decisions? Apparently, the measures taken against RAIPON were due to its active engagement to defend Indigenous peoples' rights especially vis-à-vis the Russian extractive industry. A starting point for all possible explanations is thus the existing ...

The U'Wa Struggle To Protect Their Cultural Lands: A Framework For Reviewing Questions Of Sovereignty And The Right To Environmental Integrity For Indigenous Peoples, Jenny R. Culler

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Getches Wilkinson Center Newsletter, Fall 2014, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment

Getches Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment Newsletter (2013-)

No abstract provided.

An Era Of Continued Neglect: Assessing The Impact Of Congressional Exemptions For Alaska Natives, Samuel Gottstein

Boston College Law Review

Although Native Americans in the contiguous United States have benefited from recent congressional reforms, Alaska Native communities were largely ignored. Despite the widely acknowledged crisis of sexual assault and domestic violence in rural Alaska Native communities, Congress has explicitly exempted Alaska from legislation that would otherwise give people in these communities the ability to protect themselves. Although public outcry has prompted pending legislation in Congress to repeal some of these exemptions, such as the Alaska Safe Families and Villages Act, even that legislation does not go far enough to achieve a permanent and effective solution to what is a life-or-death ...

Citizenship In Red And Yellow: Elk V. Wilkins And United States V. Wong Kim Ark, Bethany Berger

Bethany Berger

American Indians and ethnic Chinese played outsized roles in the transformation of citizenship in the late nineteenth century, shaping debates and providing patterns as the geographic, racial, and ideological borders of citizenship hardened and the federal role and discretion in policing them expanded. Today, this transformation influences everything from the treatment of children of undocumented immigrants to tribal land, sovereign, and treaty rights to the status of U.S. island territories. This Article examines these changes and what they meant for the individuals and communities involved through the lenses of Elk v. Wilkins and United States v. Wong Kim Ark ...

Tribes And Race: The Court’S Missed Opportunity In Adoptive Couple V. Baby Girl, Christopher Deluzio

Pace Law Review

Part I of this article will provide an overview of the legal doctrines implicated in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl. First, Part I will discuss both Indian Child Welfare Act’s text and purpose and scholarly attention given to the law. Second, Part I will examine the law of putative fathers insofar as relevant to understanding ICWA’s application in Adoptive Couple. Part II provides insight into the Court’s equal protection jurisprudence with a particular emphasis on considerations of race in adoption and laws implicating Indian tribes. This Part introduces the limited scholarly treatment afforded to the equal protection ...

A Globally Sustainable Right To Land: Utilizing Real Property To Protect The Traditional Knowledge Of Indigenous Peoples And Local Communities, Jennifer Lynn Zweig

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Fifty Thousand Years Old And Still Fighting For Rights: The Continuing Struggle Of Australia's Indigenous Population, Emily Hart Cobb

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.