Indigenous, Indian, and Aboriginal Law Commons^™

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.

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

American Indian Law Journal

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.

Case Law On American Indians, Thomas P. Schlosser

American Indian Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Checking Our Attachment To The Charter And Respecting Indigenous Legal Orders: A Framework For Charter Application To Indigenous Governments, Naiomi Metallic

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom looms large in our national identity. As a constitutional law professor at a Canadian law school, my experience is that most students and lawyers see the Charter as intrinsically tied to fundamental notions of justice and fairness in our country. Because of this, Canadian lawyers and judges, who believe the Charter to be inherently good, may find it hard to understand why Indigenous peoples resist application of the Charter to their own institutions. But Canadian jurists’ attachment to the Charter, if not kept in check, can easily lead to dismissing important objections …

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 …

Crossing The Dark And Fearful River: Monsanto, Pcbs, And Emerging Tort Theories, Keith Dornan, Jamie Hearn

American Indian Law Journal

guide the discussion.

Tribal, state, and city authorities are currently pursuing or have settled product liability, public nuisance, and other common law and statutory tort claims brought against Monsanto[1] for PCB contamination.^[2] “Sovereign-led” litigation melds traditional plaintiff common law tort litigation with sovereign-led environmental suits and is an emerging trend in environmental law.^[3] Tort claims against the manufacturers of contaminants ubiquitous in the environment give sovereigns a new angle for pursuing damages separate from a traditional statutory environmental claim under federal or state regulatory schemes, such as the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA)

Lawyering The Indian Child Welfare Act, Matthew L.M. Fletcher, Wenona T. Singel

Michigan Law Review

This Article describes how the statutory structure of child welfare laws enables lawyers and courts to exploit deep-seated stereotypes about American Indian people rooted in systemic racism to undermine the enforcement of the rights of Indian families and tribes. Even when Indian custodians and tribes are able to protect their rights in court, their adversaries use those same advantages on appeal to attack the constitutional validity of the law. The primary goal of this Article is to help expose those structural issues and the ethically troublesome practices of adoption attorneys as the most important Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) case …

Falling Through The Cracks: The American Indian Foster Care To Sexual Exploitation Pipeline And The Need For Expanded American Indian Community Services In Minnesota, Sadie Hart

DePaul Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

From “Trust” To “Trustworthiness”: Retheorizing Dynamics Of Trust, Distrust, And Water Security In North America, Nicole J. Wilson, Teresa Montoya, Yanna Lambrinidou, Leila M. Harris, Benjamin J. Pauli, Deborah Mcgregor, Robert J. Patrick, Silvia Gonzalez, Gregory Pierce, Amber Wutich

Articles & Book Chapters

Assumptions of trust in water systems are widespread in higher-income countries, often linked to expectations of “modern water.” The current literature on water and trust also tends to reinforce a technoscientific approach, emphasizing the importance of aligning water user perceptions with expert assessments. Although such approaches can be useful to document instances of distrust, they often fail to explain why patterns differ over time, and across contexts and populations. Addressing these shortcomings, we offer a relational approach focused on the trustworthiness of hydro-social systems to contextualize water-trust dynamics in relation to broader practices and contexts. In doing so, we investigate …

Wells V. Spotted Eagle, 22-Ap-02 (Blkft. Tr. Ct. App., May 17, 2022), Blackfeet Appellate Court

Court Decisions

In the Blackfeet Tribal Court of Appeals, the Court considered an appeal challenging the lower court’s appointment of a decedent's personal representative of the estate. The Court would not deviate from the lower court’s decision without sufficient demonstration of any abuse of discretion or misapplication of law in the lower court’s order.

Fanon, Colonial Violence, And Racist Language In Federal American Indian Law, Joubin Khazaie

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

This Comment will argue that the racist language enshrined in foundational Supreme Court decisions involving Native tribes continuously enacts a form of colonial violence that seeks to preserve a white racial dictatorship. The paper will use Frantz Fanon’s scholarship on colonial violence and the dehumanization of Indigenous people as a framework to understand the history of legalized racism against Indigenous people in the United States. Fanon’s analysis allows us to understand how language is used to dehumanize Native people in order to establish a system of hierarchy that informs the societal roles of the colonizer and the colonized. The paper …

Ninth Circuit Muddies The Waters Of Tribal Sovereign Immunity And The Clean Water Act In Deschutes River Alliance V. Portland Ge, Danielle Clifford

Washington Journal of Social & Environmental Justice

Throughout 2011 and 2012, members of the Deschutes River community who fish in the Lower Deschutes River in Oregon noticed a slew of significant changes to their natural environment. The Deschutes River Alliance attributed the changes to the operation of the Pelton Round Butte Hydraulic Project, which is co-owned and operated by Portland General Electric and The Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs. In July 2016, DRA filed a Clean Water Act lawsuit against them. To rule on the alleged CWA violations, the DRA must first get past the tribal sovereign immunity hurdle. It is long-recognized that American Indian Nations …

Tribal Identity And The Rise Of The American Indian/Alaskan Native Population, Angel M. Stevens

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Today, most tribal nations in the United States identify by federal recognition, yet on the American Community Survey, American Indian/Alaskan Native respondents can self-identify as a member of a specific tribal nation. Most researchers argues that this tribal identification fortifies the reflection of the American Indian/Alaskan Native identity. There are 574 federally recognized tribes in the United States today. Between 2000-2020, the US Census Bureau and the American Community Survey noted a significant surge in the American Indian/Alaskan Native population. This population growth went from a mere 2 million to almost 10 million in a 20-year time span. In this …

Preview—Oklahoma V. Castro-Huerta: A Test Of State And Tribal Sovereignty, Genevieve Antonioli Schmit

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta challenges the reach of the United States Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma and tests the settled criminal jurisdiction scheme within Indian Country. On April 27, 2022, beginning at 10:00 a.m. EST., the U.S. Supreme Court will hear argument on the sole question of whether a state court has concurrent jurisdiction with a federal court to prosecute non-Indians who commit crimes against Indians in Indian country. The State of Oklahoma (“Petitioner”) argues that it has concurrent jurisdiction to prosecute such crimes. Castro-Huerta (“Respondent”) argues that the Court should adopt the current understanding that the …

Mad Plume V. Mad Plume, 22-Ap-05 (Blkft. Tr. Ct. App., April 5, 2022), Blackfeet Appellate Court

Court Decisions

In the Blackfeet Tribal Court of Appeals, the Court reiterated that is will not consider an appeal that is untimely. The Blackfeet Law and Order Code, Ch. 11, Sec. 13 E requires appeals to be filed within ten days.

Loring V. Tribe, 21-Ap-06 (Blkft. Tr. Ct. App., April 5, 2022), Blackfeet Appellate Court

Court Decisions

In the Blackfeet Tribal Court of Appeals, the Court denied a motion to reconsider a conviction, judged in absentia, because the Final Order from the lower court has not been received by the Appellate Court for review, thus it is untimely. The Court cannot reconsider without a completed file.

Brief For The Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Southern Ute Tribe, The Crow Nation, And Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe As Amici Curiae Supporting Respondent, Paul Spruhan

Faculty Scholarship

The Navajo Nation, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, the Southern Ute Tribe, the Crow Nation, and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe submit this amicus brief in support of Respondent Castro-Huerta.1 The signatory tribes do so to contest the State of Oklahoma’s argument that states have inherent criminal jurisdiction over crimes committed by non-Indians against Indians in Indian Country. Amici curiae are signatories to “Peace Commission” treaties with the United States that affirm tribal sovereignty over their territory to the exclusion of the states, with the federal government assuming the responsibility to arrest and prosecute non-Indian “bad men” who commit offenses …