Law Commons^™

Textualism And The Indian Canons Of Statutory Construction, Alex Tallchief Skibine

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

When interpreting statutes enacted for the benefit or regulation of Indians or construing treaties signed with Indian nations, courts are supposed to apply any of five specific canons of construction relating to Indian Affairs. Through examining the modern line of Supreme Court cases involving statutory or treaty interpretation relating to Indian nations, this Article demonstrates that the Court has generally been faithful in applying canons relating to treaty interpretation or abrogation. The Court has also respected the canon requiring unequivocal expression of congressional intent before finding an abrogation of tribal sovereign immunity. However, there are two other canons that the …

Release The River: Recognizing Legal Rights For Natural Objects To Remedy Continuing Issues In American Environmental Law, Eamon Danieu

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Digital Isolation Of Indigenous Communities, Myranda Buiquy

American Indian Law Journal

The crude mistreatment of the tribes across America has continued to undermine Indigenous wealth and empowerment, leaving many Native people without proper housing, education, running water, healthcare, and telecommunications services. Tribes are forced to advocate for themselves to the federal government, instead of receiving support and compensation for generations of colossal exploitation.The federal government continues to breach their responsibility in protecting tribal treaty rights and must assume responsibility in closing an economic divide that has only worsened due to the pandemic.

Indigenous communities continue to endure disadvantaged living conditions, leaving their people without adequate resources. In addition, this vulnerable demographic …

Native America: Universities As Quasi-Cities, Sovereignty And The Power To Name, Victoria Sutton

American Indian Law Journal

Universities as quasi-cities have an obligation to reflect on their educational mission, and public universities have a responsibility to Native America through the unique federal trust responsibility owed to Native Nations by the federal government. The naming of buildings and transitioning to responsible adulthood requires universities, administrators, and students to reflect on who we were, who we are now, and whom we hope to be. Collaborative efforts to work with Native Nations should be undertaken with regard to naming issues.

Sovereigns possess power to control historical narratives and outcomes through their sovereign power to (1) name geographical places; (2) protect …

Education Administration In Federal Indian Law: Learning From A Colonial Project Turned Tool Of Liberation, Ariel Liberman, Douglas L. Waters Jr.

American Indian Law Journal

While statistics tend to focus on the difficulties facing tribal education, this article endeavors to look at the matter with fresh eyes. The federal administrative paradigm governing tribal schools has gone from a tool of cultural genocide to a mechanism for empowerment. A survey of recent governmental reforms demonstrates an embrace of the diversity of Indigenous communities, an interest in empowering students through learning, and an acknowledgement of a history of active disenfranchisement. This is ever-evolving federal-tribal relationship shows the administrative state’s capacity for dealing with greatly nuanced community needs and for tailor-making reforms to achieve concrete goals, even if …

A Jurisprudential Quilt Of Tribal Civil Jurisdiction: An Analysis Of Tribal Court Approaches To Determining Civil Adjudicatory Jurisdiction, Jacob Maiman-Stadtmauer

American Indian Law Journal

There are hundreds of Native American Tribes with their own judicial systems and courts. Under the test first established in Montana v. United States, the Supreme Court of the United States has provided a single, nebulous standard for determining the limits of tribal courts’ jurisdiction over non-Indians. Scholars and federal jurists have long assumed that the Supreme Court's framework limiting tribal civil jurisdiction is essential to how tribal courts determine jurisdiction. This paper challenges that assumption. Through a first of its kind survey of tribal court decisions on civil jurisdiction, spanning 26 tribes and covering 71 decisions, this paper …

Examining Comity And The Exhaustion Doctrine In Tribal Court Civil Jurisdiction: The Cherokee Nation’S Opioid Litigation, Joëlle Klein

Washington Law Review

The opioid epidemic has devastated communities throughout the United States over the last two decades. Native American and Alaska Native tribes faced disproportionate impacts and suffered the long-lasting consequences that opioid addiction causes families and communities. In response, states and municipalities across the United States sued the distributors and pharmacies responsible for illegally diverting opioids. In April of 2017, the Attorney General for the Cherokee Nation, Todd Hembree, initiated a civil suit against opioid pharmaceutical distributors and retailers: CVS, Walgreens, Wal-Mart (pharmacies), and McKesson, Cardinal Health, and AmerisourceBergen (distributors). Although other tribes in the United States also brought claims against …

The Youth Inferno: Two-Way Working On Ancestral Lands, Pamela Nathan

New England Journal of Public Policy

In this article I present some of the work of Creating a Safe and Supportive Environment (CASSE) in Central Australia, Northern Territory, with the youth in the justice system, referring to our dual cultural and therapeutic program Shields for Living, Tools for Life. Psychoanalytic concepts and tools that have informed the work and transformed the trauma landscape are detailed. The work is at the epicenter of anger, concern, and politics in Central Australia and this epicenter has been named the “youth crisis.” It is a journey of feeling the heat, of being on a rollercoaster ride in a landscape of …

Why Our Stories Matter: A Perspective On The Restatement From The State Bench, Raquel Montoya-Lewis

Washington Law Review

No abstract provided.

Bringing Congress And Indians Back Into Federal Indian Law: The Restatement Of The Law Of American Indians, Kirsten Matoy Carlson

Washington Law Review

Congress and Native Nations have renegotiated the federal-tribal relationship in the past fifty years. The courts, however, have failed to keep up with Congress and recognize this modern federal-tribal relationship. As a result, scholars, judges, and practitioners often characterize federal Indian law as incoherent and inconsistent. This Article argues that the Restatement of the Law of American Indians retells federal Indian law to close the gap between statutory and decisional law. It realigns federal Indian law with the modern federal-tribal relationship negotiated between Congress and tribal governments. Consistent with almost a half-century of congressional law and policy, the Restatement clarifies …

Reflections On The Restatement Of The Law Of American Indians, Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Washington Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Ascension Of Indigenous Cultural Property Law, Angela R. Riley

Michigan Law Review

Indigenous Peoples across the world are calling on nation-states to “decolonize” laws, structures, and institutions that negatively impact them. Though the claims are broad based, there is a growing global emphasis on issues pertaining to Indigenous Peoples’ cultural property and the harms of cultural appropriation, with calls for redress increasingly framed in the language of human rights. Over the last decade, Native people have actively fought to defend their cultural property. The Navajo Nation sued Urban Outfitters to stop the sale of “Navajo panties,” the Quileute Tribe sought to enjoin Nordstrom’s marketing of “Quileute Chokers,” and the descendants of Tasunke …

Tribal Sovereignty And Economic Efficiency Versus The Courts, Robert J. Miller

Washington Law Review

American Indian reservations are the poorest parts of the United States, and a higher percentage of Indian families across the country live below the poverty line than any other ethnic or racial sector. Indian nations and Indian peoples also suffer from the highest unemployment rates in the country and have the highest substandard housing rates. The vast majority of the over three hundred Indian reservations and the Alaska Native villages do not have functioning economies. This lack of economic activity starves tribal governments of the tax revenues that governments need to function. In response, Indian nations create and operate business …

Protection For Indian Sacred Sites, William A. Fletcher

Washington Law Review

No abstract provided.

Off-Reservation Treaty Hunting Rights, The Restatement, And The Stevens Treaties, Ann E. Tweedy

Washington Law Review

The underdevelopment of the law of off-reservation treaty hunting and gathering poses challenges for treatises like the groundbreaking Restatement of the Law of American Indians (“Restatement”). With particular attention to sections 83 and 6 of the Restatement, this Article explores those challenges and offers some solutions for dealing with them in subsequent editions of the Restatement. Specifically, this Article explores the potential usefulness of historical law in interpreting treaties, the need to tie treaty interpretation to the language of the treaty when an explicit right is at issue, the proper application of the reserved rights doctrine and the Indian canons, …

Cultural Resources, Conquest, And Courts: How State Court Approaches To Statutory Interpretation Diminish Indigenous Cultural Resources Protections In California, Hawai‘I, And Washington, Lauren Ashley Week

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Critical Race Theory identifies two of the United States’ original sins: slavery and conquest; yet, while the former is well known, the latter is simultaneously obvious and unknown, creating a disconnect between the history of violent conquest to the disparities that continue to afflict indigenous communities today. This lack of understanding and acknowledgement also permeates the federal courts—an issue extensively documented by Critical Race Theory and federal Indian law academics. Yet, limited scholarship has interrogated if and how state judicial systems may parallel the failures of federal benches. This Note examines the “hidden,” yet enduring impact of conquest by applying …

Eli-Tpitahatomek Tpaskuwakonol Waponahkik (How We, Native People, Reflect On The Law In The Dawnland), Michael-Corey F. Hinton, Erick J. Giles

Maine Law Review

Multiple nations within the Wabanaki Confederacy, including the Maliseet Nation, Mi’kmaq Nation, Passamaquoddy Tribe, and Penobscot Nation, were signatories to the July 19, 1776 Treaty of Watertown, which was the first ever treaty entered into by the United States of America following the Declaration of Independence. Following the Treaty of Watertown, Wabanaki warriors served directly under General George Washington and made critical contributions in support of the Americans’ Revolutionary War. Such contributions were made based on the Americans’ promise that the Wabanaki Nations’ lands, natural resources, and traditional ways of life would be forever protected by the fledgling United States. …

Treaty-Based Climate Change Claims: Litigation Pathways In The Face Of Cultural Devastation, Kirsten D. Gerbatsch

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Do It For The Kids: Protecting Future Generations From Climate Change Impacts And Future Pandemics In Maryland Using An Environmental Rights Amendment, Johanna Adashek

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Youth And Indigenous Voices In Climate Justice: Leveraging Best Practices From U.S. And Canadian Litigation, Randall S. Abate

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Water Justice Under The Big Sky: Locating A Human Right To Water In Montana Law, Abigail R. Brown

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Judicial Duty: Interpreting And Enforcing Montanans' Inalienable Right To A Clean And Healthful Environment, Nate Bellinger, Roger Sullivan

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Letter To The Reader

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Editors And Staff Members

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legal Rights For Rivers, Katie O'Bryan

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

A Watershed Moment: The Health And Economic Impact Of Water Sustainability In The Navajo Nation Post Pandemic, Onnaedo Nwankwo

American Indian Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Rule Against Hearsay, Indigenous Claims And Story-Telling As Testimony In Canadian Courts, Zia Akhtar

American Indian Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Case Law On American Indians, Thomas P. Schlosser

American Indian Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Extraction Of Personal Data: A New Form Of Colonialism Or Continuation Of A Colonial Practice? Adult Native American Adoptees Resist Assimilation And Rebuild Erased Identities, Leonard Mukosi

American Indian Law Journal

A new form of colonialism, distinctive of the 21st century is reported to be taking shape: data colonialism. Data colonialism interprets the contemporary capture and processing of personal data by governments or data corporations as an evolution of historical colonialism. Scholars who advance this theory do not juxtapose the contents, form, let alone the physical violence of historical colonialism with the contemporary practices of appropriation of personal data. Instead, they only refer to historic colonialism in the context of its function within the development of economies on a global scale. The main argument made in this paper is that; to …