Law Commons^™

Natural Law, Assumptions, And Humility, Ezra Rosser

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This review of Natural Property Rights celebrates Eric Claeys’s efforts to resuscitate natural law as a viable approach to property law. Although readers unlikely to be convinced that natural law is the way to best understand property rights, Claeys succeeds in breathing new life into natural law. Natural Property Rights’ emphasis on use as property law’s fundamental value creates space to reconceptualize the rights of property owners and the place of non-owners within a just theory of property rights. The main critiques of Natural Property Rights offered in this review center around the choice to prioritize rights over duties and …

Icwa’S Irony, Marcia A. Yablon-Zug

Faculty Publications

The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) is a federal statute that protects Indian children by keeping them connected to their families and culture. The Act’s provisions include support for family reunification, kinship care preferences, cultural competency considerations and community involvement. These provisions parallel national child welfare policies. Nevertheless, the Act is relentlessly attacked as a law that singles out Indian children for unique and harmful treatment. This is untrue but, ironically, it will be if challenges to the ICWA are successful. To prevent this from occurring, the defense of the Act needs to change. For too long, this defense has …

Privatizing The Reservation?, Kristen A. Carpenter, Angela R. Riley

Publications

The problems of American Indian poverty and reservation living conditions have inspired various explanations. One response advanced by some economists and commentators, which may be gaining traction within the Trump Administration, calls for the “privatization” of Indian lands. Proponents of this view contend that reservation poverty is rooted in the federal Indian trust arrangement, which preserves the tribal land base by limiting the marketability of lands within reservations. In order to maximize wealth on reservations, policymakers are advocating for measures that would promote the individuation and alienability of tribal lands, while diminishing federal and tribal oversight.

Taking a different view, …

Public Lands, Conservation, And The Possibility Of Justice, Sarah Krakoff

Publications

On December 28, 2016, President Obama issued a proclamation designating the Bears Ears National Monument pursuant to his authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906, which allows the President to create monuments on federal public lands. Bears Ears, which is located in the heart of Utah’s dramatic red rock country, contains a surfeit of ancient Puebloan cliff-dwellings, petroglyphs, pictographs, and archeological artifacts. The area is also famous for its paleontological finds and its desert biodiversity. Like other national monuments, Bears Ears therefore readily meets the statutory objective of preserving “historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific …

Operationalizing Free, Prior, And Informed Consent, Carla F. Fredericks

Publications

The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) has acknowledged varying ways in which international actors can protect, respect and remedy the rights of indigenous peoples. One of these methods is the concept of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) as described in Articles 10, 19, 28 and 29. There has been much debate in the international community over the legal status of the UNDRIP, and member states have done little to implement it. In applied contexts, many entities like extractive industries and conservation groups are aware of risks inherent in not soliciting FPIC and have endeavored to …

Responsible Resource Development And Prevention Of Sex Trafficking: Safeguarding Native Women And Children On The Fort Berthold Reservation, Kathleen Finn, Erica Gajda, Thomas Perin, Carla Fredericks

Publications

In 2010, large deposits of oil and natural gas were found in the Bakken shale formation, much of which is encompassed by the Fort Berthold Indian reservation, home to the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation (“MHA Nation” or “Three Affiliated Tribes” or “the Tribe”). However, rapid oil and gas development has brought an unprecedented rise of violent crime on and near the Fort Berthold reservation. Specifically, the influx of well-paid male oil and gas workers, living in temporary housing often referred to as “man camps,” has coincided with a disturbing increase in sex trafficking of Native women. The social risks …

Cherokee Freedmen And The Color Of Belonging, Lolita Buckner Inniss

Publications

This article addresses the Cherokee tribe and their historic conflict with the descendants of their former black slaves, designated Cherokee Freedmen. This article specifically addresses how historic discussions of black, red and white skin colors, designating the African-ancestored, aboriginal (Native American) and European-ancestored people of the United States, have helped to shape the contours of color-based national belonging among the Cherokee. This article also suggests that Homi K. Bhabha’s notion of postcolonial mimicry offers a potent source for analyzing the Cherokee’s historic use of skin color as a marker of Cherokee membership. The Cherokee past practice of black slavery and …

Cherokee Freedmen And The Color Of Belonging, Lolita Buckner Inniss

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This Article addresses the Cherokee Nation and its historic conflict with the descendants of its former black slaves, designated Cherokee Freedmen. This Article specifically addresses how historic discussions of black, red, and white skin colors, designating the African-ancestored, aboriginal (Native American), and European-ancestored people of the United States have helped to shape the contours of color-based national belonging among the Cherokee. The Cherokee past practice of black slavery and the past and continuing use of skin color-coded belonging not only undermines the coherence of Cherokee sovereignty, identity, and belonging but also problematizes the notion of an explicitly aboriginal way of …

In Plain View, Christina D. Ponsa-Kraus

Faculty Scholarship

In this tightly argued and thoroughly engaging article, Gregory Ablavsky makes the case for a revisionist history of the U.S. Constitution that places Native American Indians at its center. While it isn’t hard to show that conventional constitutional histories largely neglect Indians, it isn’t easy to prove that such neglect is not benign. That is, it’s one thing to argue that standard accounts should include a discussion of Indians, but it’s another thing entirely to make a convincing case that core constitutional understandings would be fundamentally altered if historians fully and prominently integrated the history of relations with Indians into …

Garden Of Truth, Sarah Deer

Faculty Scholarship

On Oct. 27, 2011, a report entitled “Garden of Truth: The Prostitution and Trafficking of Native Women in Minnesota” was released in St. Paul, Minn. The report was the culmination of a three-year research project conducted in Minnesota by two nonprofit organizations: the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition, a grassroots organization of Native American women that is based in St. Paul and focuses on outreach and awareness for survivors of sexual assault, and Prostitution Research and Education, a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco. This unique collaboration between advocates of Native American women and social scientists has produced a …

Inextricably Political: Race, Membership, And Tribal Sovereignty, Sarah Krakoff

Publications

Courts address equal protection questions about the distinct legal treatment of American Indian tribes in the following dichotomous way: are classifications concerning American Indians "racial or political?" If the classification is political (i.e., based on federally recognized tribal status or membership in a federally recognized tribe) then courts will not subject it to heightened scrutiny. If the classification is racial rather than political, then courts may apply heightened scrutiny. This Article challenges the dichotomy itself. The legal categories "tribe" and "tribal member" are themselves political, and reflect the ways in which tribes and tribal members have been racialized by U.S. …

Smoke And Mirrors: A History Of Nagpra And The Evolving U.S. View Of The American Indian, Lindee R. Grabouski

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

While paintings of Native Americans and Europeans exchanging goods and cultural values adorn the walls of museums around the United States, actual Native/non-Native interaction over the past 500 years has been one of illusion, not cooperation. Until recently, legislation “protecting” Native Americans appeared altruistic on the surface, but, instead, served only as a facade for keeping Native artifacts in the hands of scientists and collectors. Even the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), the most recent legislative attempt to reconcile the past mistreatment of Native Americans, is riddled with obstacles and optical illusions.

Certainly, NAGPRA demonstrates the most …

Progress Realized? The Continuing American Indian Mascot Quandary, André Douglas Pond Cummings

Faculty Scholarship

To some, American Indian mascots represent strength, power, reverence, and dignity. For others, Native American mascots are deeply offensive and mock tradition and sacred culture. Historically, professional and collegiate athletic teams have unabashedly sported American Indian mascots and monikers, and it has not been until recent decades that this issue has arisen as offensive or insensitive. In the past thirty or so years, there have been many high school and university administrations that have voluntarily switched their team mascot and moniker from an American Indian to a race-neutral one. Still, some university administrations and many professional sports franchises strenuously eschew …

Customary Law: The Way Things Were, Codified, Ezra Rosser

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Frequently referred to as customary law, the unique traditions and customs of different Native American tribes are cited by their tribal courts as authoritative and binding law. The recent use of customary law as a mechanism for deciding individual cases is not uniform among tribal court systems as it differs depending upon which tribe's judges are working to place custom into contemporary judicial analysis. Understanding the present role of customary law in tribal law requires first understanding the nature of customary law and then understanding how it is being used. The effect of customary law is dependent upon the place …

The Paradoxes Of Cultural Property, Naomi Mezey

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Many current cultural disputes sound in the legal language and logic of discrimination or hate speech. The focus of this essay is on the claims made explicitly or implicitly on the basis of cultural property. The problem with using ideas of cultural property to resolve cultural disputes is that cultural property encourages an anemic theory of culture so that it can make sense as a form of property. Cultural property is a paradox because it places special value and legal protection on cultural products and artifacts but does so based on a sanitized and domesticated view of cultural production and …

Lions And Tigers And Bears, Oh My Or Redskins And Braves And Indians, Oh Why: Ruminations On Mcbride V. Utah State Tax Commission, Political Correctness And The Reasonable Person, André Douglas Pond Cummings

Faculty Scholarship

American Indian mascots have been used by High Schools, Colleges and Professional sports teams for decades. Such use of monikers and mascots that depict Native American images and stereotypes have come under intense criticism in the past decade. Despite the outcry, a few professional sports teams and major Division I institutions continue to stubbornly persist in using derogatory and offensive nicknames and stereotypes for their athletic competitors.

This article urges those stubborn institutions and professional sports teams to reconsider the use of names and monikers that demean and disparage. By reconsidering the reasonable person standard, examining recent caselaw, and discussing …

Slides: New England Forestry Foundation: Private Forests For The Public Good Since 1944, Frank Reed

Community-Owned Forests: Possibilities, Experiences, and Lessons Learned (June 16-19)

Presenter: Frank Reed, New England Forestry Foundation

9 slides

This Land Is My Land, This Land Is Your Land: Markets And Institutions For Economic Development On Native American Reservations, Ezra Rosser

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This paper presents the current land regime and nature of economic development found on most Native American reservations, drawing predominantly from the Navajo Nation. It then considers the situation according to (1) neo-classical economics and (2) New Institutional Economics (NIE). The paper begins with the paired assumptions that economic growth can and should reach reservations and that the U.S. and tribal governments can improve upon past performance and institutional arrangements. Policy solutions to reservation commercial and light industrial underdevelopment, corresponding to each economic perspective in turn, are then discussed. The paper broadens the range of policy options available to tribes …

Agenda: Outdoor Recreation: Promise And Peril In The New West, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center, Colorado. Bureau Of Land Management

Outdoor Recreation: Promise and Peril in the New West (Summer Conference, June 8-10)

Co-sponsored by the Natural Resources Law Center and the Colorado Bureau of Land Management.

The conference will explore several components of the “promise and peril” of the ongoing outdoor recreation explosion. The conference will begin on the morning of June 8 with a series of introductory presentations designed to place the outdoor recreation movement in a useful historical and socioeconomic context. This material will be followed in the afternoon session by a discussion of environmental impacts of outdoor recreation, recognizing that the diversity and magnitude of impacts is as broad as the industry itself. This discussion will be followed on …

Agenda: Sustainable Use Of The West's Water, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Sustainable Use of the West's Water (Summer Conference, June 12-14)

Conference organizers and/or faculty included University of Colorado School of Law professors David H. Getches, Lawrence J. MacDonnell, Teresa A. Rice, Elizabeth A. Rieke and Charles F. Wilkinson.

Sustainable development is on the policy agenda for the '90s. What does sustainability mean? Is it a realistic concept? Are water rights compatible with sustainable use? The Center's 16th annual summer conference will explore the meaning of sustainability in the context of the West's demands, development, and natural values. Presentations by leading experts will address the broad concept of sustainable development, with a particular look at Arizona's experience. The focus will be …

Private Dollars On The Reservation: Will Recent Native American Economic Development Amount To Cultural Assimilation?, Karin M. Mika, Bonnie Hurst

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article exams commercial enterprises and its gaining popularity among Native American tribes. The cooperative economic ventures that are not considered indigenous to Native American culture may yield the unintended yet inevitable result of assimilating Native Americans into mainstream American society. In an ironic twist, the resulting assimilation has, in many respects, fulfilled the misguided aspirations of the earliest European colonists.