Indigenous, Indian, and Aboriginal Law Commons^™

Brief For The Council Of University Presidents On Legislative Council V Martinez As Amicus Curiae, No. S-1-Sc-36422, Kevin Washburn

Faculty Scholarship

On April 7, 2017, the Governor exercised an extraordinary line-item veto of portions of the Fiscal Year 2018 appropriation bill eliminating all funding for the Legislature and for higher education in New Mexico. Governor's House Executive Message No. 56 (April 7, 2017), Petitioner's Exhibit D, at 3-7. Amici have a fiduciary responsibility to their institutions to advocate for a resolution quickly to mitigate the many harms caused by this budget crisis. CUP takes no position on the outcome of this action, but Amici do request that this case be decided expeditiously so that other constitutional actors do not waste time …

Ties Of Separation: Analogy And Generational Segregation In North America, Australia, And Israel/Palestine, Hedi Viterbo

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

This article takes analogy as both its mode and object of inquiry, to canvas the relationship between historical-geographical analogies and generational segregation (the large-scale separation of children and adults) from three complementary perspectives. First, due to restrictions recently introduced by the Israeli authorities, Palestinian prisoners have been prevented from reading popular study materials dealing with both Indigenous child removal and analogies concerning settler-indigenous relations in North America and Australia. This article revives the critical potential of this encounter with analogies and accounts by asserting an analogy between the removal of indigenous children to boarding schools in the United States and …

Putting An End To The Silence: Educating Society About The Canadian Residential School System, Jamie Lee Kuhl

Bridges: An Undergraduate Journal of Contemporary Connections

This paper advocates for the increased education of Canadian society regarding the Indian Residential School System. Many Canadian’s tend to be uninformed on the history of the schools and as a result risk subjecting Aboriginal peoples to further harm. The contents of this paper demonstrates by informing all Canadian citizens of the truth regarding the assimilative schools and their enduring legacy on Aboriginal peoples, several benefits can occur. Specifically, through revealing the truth regarding the residential schools, healing becomes possible for victims, over-representation within the criminal justice system can be better understood as well as addressed, and future harm can …

What The Future Holds: The Changing Landscape Of Federal Indian Policy, Kevin Washburn

Faculty Scholarship

Since first described by Chief Justice John Marshall, the United States has been deemed to have a moral and legal “trust responsibility” to the American Indian tribal nations that gave way so that the United States could exist. For nearly two centuries, the trust responsibility reflected a paternalistic view toward Indian tribes. As the United States has developed a more enlightened policy characterized by greater respect for “tribal self-governance,” tribal governments have experienced a renaissance. Federal policy has moved away from federal control and toward tribal empowerment. As a result, the trust responsibility’s paternalistic features have come to seem anachronistic, …

Lewis V. Clarke, Lillian M. Alvernaz

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The nation to nation relationship between tribes and the federal government is unique. Within that relationship, the federal government acknowledges and respects tribal sovereignty. An important aspect of sovereignty is sovereign immunity. Lewis v. Clarke confronts the applicability of sovereign immunity through an extension of tribal sovereignty over an employee defendant. After having heard oral argument, the United States Supreme Court could either reaffirm or severely limit the applicability of tribal sovereign immunity to “arms” of a tribe. While the lower court analyzed tribal sovereign immunity by considering the damages sought, the Supreme Court opinion portends to extend far beyond …

We Need Protection From Our Protectors: The Nature, Issues, And Future Of The Federal Trust Responsibility To Indians, Daniel I.S.J. Rey-Bear, Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

The federal trust responsibility to Indians essentially entails duties of good faith, loyalty, and protection. While often thought of as unique to federal Indian policy, it developed from and reflects common law principles of contracts, property, trusts, foreign relations/international law, and constitutional law. However, several issues preclude a greater understanding and implementation of the federal trust responsibility. These include Executive Branch efforts to avoid liability, neocolonial judicial activism, and episodic congressional attention. Enactment of legislation to reaffirm and modernize the federal trust responsibility through greater self-determination, integration, elevation, oversight, and funding should help overcome these issues to improve federal Indian …

San Manuel'S Second Exception: Identifying Treaty Provisions That Support Tribal Labor Sovereignty, Briana Green

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Inspired by the holding in WinStar World Casino, this Note considers the potential for tribes to make treaty-based arguments when facing the threat of National Labor Relations Board jurisdiction. This Note presents the results of a survey of U.S. government treaties with Native Americans to identify those treaties with language similar to that interpreted by the Board in WinStar World Casino. The survey identified four treaties and four tribes that could make treaty-based arguments like those made in Winstar World Casino: the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, the Seminole Nation of …

Exploring Alternatives To The "Consultation Or Consent" Paradigm, Jason Searle

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

The Dakota Access Pipeline brought the question of what adequate tribal consultation requires to the forefront. Some would argue that consultation is a weak standard and that only adopting a new standard of free, prior, and informed consent can guarantee tribes greater control and respect. However, the “consultation or consent” paradigm does not take into account important sources of law that do not fit under “consultation” or “consent” and yet could be valuable in strengthening tribes’ claims in the absence of a consent standard.

Whose Standards Control? Maine V. Mccanhy And The Federal, State, And Tribal Battle Over Water Quality Regulation, Joseph Paul Mortelliti

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

This Note considers the longstanding clash between the United States government and state governments over the management of intrastate waters through the lens of Maine v. McCarthy, an ongoing federal lawsuit. McCarthy confronts whether the United States Environmental Protection Agency can require state water quality standards to specifically safeguard the health and cultural practices of Maine’s Indian tribes, particularly sustenance fishing. A panoply of legal and political factors gave rise to and shaped the course of the litigation, ranging from tribal sovereignty to agency discretion and political gamesmanship. After evaluating the litigants’ arguments and examining previous regulatory collisions between …

Indian Country Complexities And The Ambiguous State Of Marijuana Policy In The United States, Lauren Adornetto

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Returning To The Tribal Environmental "Laboratory": An Examination Of Environmental Enforcement Techniques In Indian Country, Elizabeth Ann Kronk Warner

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Governments, including tribes, need to protect one of humankind’s most valuable resources: the environment. In addition to environmental regulations, effective enforcement mechanisms are key to successful efforts to protect the environment. While much has been written about the environmental enforcement mechanisms of states and the federal government, little scholarly attention has been paid to how tribal governments are working to protect their environments. Given that there are 567 federally recognized tribes and approximately 56.2 million acres held in trust for tribes in the United States, such oversight is significant. This Article fills a scholarly void with a description of environmental …

Indigenous Mental Health: Imagining A Future Where Action Follows Obligations And Promises, Constance Macintosh

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This article considers what it would mean if Canada fulfilled select existing commitments and obligations concerning the mental health needs of Indigenous peoples, as identified through current programs and recent jurisprudence: that is, where would we be if Canada carried through on existing commitments? After identifying the role of law in perpetuating poor mental well-being, it assesses programs for First Nations and Inuit peoples and determines they are unlikely to be effective without operational changes and responsive funding. The article then turns to the situation of Metis and non-status First Nations and the implications ofDaniels v. Canada for changing …

Indigenous Blockades And The Power To Speak The Law: From Settler Colonialism To Indigenous Resurgence, Christopher Eric Jon Albinati

LLM Theses

This thesis traces tensions between pluralism, elimination and resistance in the centuries-old narrative underlying the uncertain legal foundations of Crown sovereignty in the territory now known as Canada. The first half of the work applies the emerging literature of settler colonialism to a close reading of a selection of leading scholarship on Aboriginal rights jurisprudence to identify whether the Canadian courts are reproducing elements of settler colonialism in their decisions. The second half of this work draws on the literature of Indigenous resurgence, blockades, jurisdiction and the rule of law to construct a framework for examining juridical sites where conflicting …

Comment Re Rule 10 Of The Minnesota General Rules Of Practice For The District Courts, Kevin Washburn

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Legacy In Paradise: Analyzing The Obama Administration’S Efforts Of Reconciliation With Native Hawaiians, Troy J.H. Andrade

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article analyzes President Barack Obama’s legacy for an indigenous people—nearly 125 years in the making—and how that legacy is now in considerable jeopardy with the election of Donald J. Trump. This Article is the first to specifically critique the hallmark of Obama’s reconciliatory legacy for Native Hawaiians: an administrative rule that establishes a process in which the United States would reestablish a government-to-government relationship with Native Hawaiians, the only indigenous people in America without a path toward federal recognition. In the Article, Obama’s rule—an attempt to provide Native Hawaiians with recognition and greater control over their own affairs to …

Indian Treaty Fishing Rights And The Environment: Affirming The Right To Habitat Protection And Restoration, Michael C. Blumm

Washington Law Review

In 1970, several tribes in the Pacific Northwest, along with their federal trustee, sued the state of Washington claiming that numerous state actions violated their treaty rights, which assured them “the right of taking fish in common with” white settlers. The tribes and their federal trustee maintained that the treaties of the 1850s guaranteed the tribes: (1) a share of fish harvests for subsistence, cultural, and commercial purposes; (2) inclusion of hatchery fish in that harvest share; and (3) protection of the habitat necessary for the salmon that were the basis of the treaty bargain and the peaceful white settlement …

Valuing Sacred Tribal Waters Within Prior Appropriation, Michelle Bryan

Natural Resources Journal

Throughout the world water plays a central role in the spirituality of indigenous peoples. Focusing on the American West, this article first describes how tribal water needs touch upon the sacred and then explains how both federal law and state prior appropriation doctrine fail to adequately protect these important sacred views of water. Pivoting away from the classic federal law arguments, the article then advocates for an evolution in state water law regimes to provide yet unrecognized protections for tribal sacred waters. Because international law plays an increasing role in this issue, the article also explores case studies from Ireland, …

Pueblo Indian Water Rights: Charting The Unknown, Richard W. Hughes

Natural Resources Journal

This article examines the so-far-unsuccessful efforts to judicially define and quantify the water rights appurtenant to the core land holdings of the 19 New Mexico Pueblos, many of whose lands straddle the Rio Grande. It explains that the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has squarely held that Pueblo water rights are governed by federal, not state law, and are prior to those of any non-Indian appropriator, but also that the Tenth Circuit acknowledged that it could not say how those rights should be characterized. Part I of the article examines the course of the cases that have sought to achieve …

“Why Should I Go Vote Without Understanding What I Am Going To Vote For?” The Impact Of First Generation Voting Barriers On Alaska Natives, James Thomas Tucker, Natalie A. Landreth, Erin Dougherty Lynch

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This article explores the many forms of discrimination that have persisted in Alaska, the resulting first generation voting barriers faced by Alaska Native voters, and the two contested lawsuits it took to attain a measure of equality for those voters in four regions of Alaska: Nick v. Bethel and Toyukak v. Treadwell. In the end, the court’s decision in Toyukak came down to a comparison of just two pieces of evidence: (1) the Official Election Pamphlet that English-speaking voters received that was often more than 100 pages long; and (2) the single sheet of paper that Alaska Native language …

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe V. U.S. Army Corps Of Engineers, Jody D. Lowenstein

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The Standing Rock Sioux’s effort to enjoin the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ permitting of an oil pipeline was stifled by the United States District Court of the District of Columbia. In denying the preliminary injunction, the court held that the Tribe failed to show that the Corps violated the National Historic Preservation Act, and that the Tribe’s belated effort to litigate was futile after failing to participate in the consultation process.

Waiting For Gluskabe: An Examination Of Maine's Colonialist Legacy Suffered By Native American Tribes Under The Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act Of 1980, Joseph G.E. Gousse

Maine Law Review

Legends of the Wabanaki people tell of a mythical demigod named Gluskabe. Immortalized through the cultural traditions of the Wabanaki—from the Mi’kmaq, Abenaki, and Passamaquoddy to the Maliseet and the Penobscot—Gluskabe appears as an integral component of each tribe’s variation of the Creation Myth, as well as numerous other tales and stories. Most prominently, Gluskabe is known for his role in creating the Penobscot River and divining proportion and harmony in the natural world, using his power to reduce the size of the once-giant land animals to establish the first village, legend holds that Gluskabe retired to the southernmost portion …

Complexity's Shadow: American Indian Property, Sovereignty, And The Future, Jessica A. Shoemaker

Michigan Law Review

This Article offers a new perspective on the challenges of the modern American Indian land tenure system. While some property theorists have renewed focus on isolated aspects of Indian land tenure, including the historic inequities of colonial takings of Indian lands, this Article argues that the complexity of today’s federally imposed reservation property system does much of the same colonizing work that historic Indian land policies—from allotment to removal to termination—did overtly. But now, these inequities are largely overshadowed by the daunting complexity of the whole land tenure structure. This Article introduces a new taxonomy of complexity in American Indian …

Why The Religious Freedom Restoration Act Cannot Protect Sacred Sites, Timothy A. Wiseman

American Indian Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Assessing Political Economy In Native American Nations, W. Gregory Guedel Ph.D, Jd

American Indian Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Legal Practitioner's Guide To Indian And Tribal Law Research, Kelly Kunsch

American Indian Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Money Is For Nothing: The Inherent Want Of Consideration Found In Substantial Exclusivity Terms Within Tribal-State Compacts, Paul C. Alexander Ii

American Indian Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Silent Epidemic: Revisiting The 2013 Reauthorization Of The Violence Against Women Act To Better Protect American Indian Native Women, Rory Flay

American Indian Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Complex Adaptive Peacemaking: How Systems Theory Reveals Advantages Of Traditional Tribal Dispute Resolution, Juliana E. Okulski

American Indian Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Akiachak Native Community V. United States Department Of Interior, Lillian M. Alvernaz

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Alaska Native Tribes have long been classified differently than the federally recognized Indian tribes in the rest of the country. The Akiachak decision contributes to the shifting treatment of Alaska Native Tribes and clarifies their relationship with the federal government. The ability to put land into trust is essential to the protection of generations to come and the exercise of sovereign authority. By enabling Alaska Native tribes the ability to petition to put tribally owned fee land in trust, the DOI promotes and encourages tribal self-governance and empowerment.

If Trees Could Lobby They Would Be People Too: The Environmental And Cultural Benefits Of Granting Legal Personality To Nature, M. Alexis Volner

Tribal Law Journal

In the Western culture today, the environment is perceived as a source for goods and resources. However, this perspective has resulted in serious environmental degradation and a real threat to our species’ survival. To combat these problems there must be a radical shift in the Western culture’s conception of nature.

The first step in this shift is to recognize the environment as a legal person. The United States should grant legal personality to all publicly owned lands containing sites held sacred by Indigenous peoples and establish a collaborative board to manage the sites to recognize Indigenous cultural rights and encourage …