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Federal Preemption: A Roadmap For The Application Of Tribal Law In State Courts, Jackie Gardina
Federal Preemption: A Roadmap For The Application Of Tribal Law In State Courts, Jackie Gardina
American Indian Law Review
This article contends that state courts are not necessarily free to apply state law when the courts are exercising concurrent adjudicative jurisdiction with tribal courts. Instead, Indian law principles of preemption direct state courts to apply tribal law in certain cases. A guiding principle emerges from the preemption analysis: if a tribe has legislative jurisdication over the dispute, tribal law must ordinarily be applied. In these instances, a state's laws, including its choice-of-law rules, are preempted by federal common law because their application interferes with the federal government's and the tribes' interest in promoting tribal self-government, including the tribes' ability …