Welcome to The Tribal Court Clearinghouse

Tribal and CFR Courts There are approximately 400 Tribal justice systems throughout the Nation. These courts are partially funded through Public Law 638 Tribal Priority Allocations (TPA). Tribal sovereignty is protected throughout the Tribal justice system or through a traditional court.

The National Congress of American Indians - Defending Sovereignty since 1944

The Tribal Law and Policy Institute is proud to offer free copies of our publications, work product created through various grants and partnerships since 1996.

Group takes steps to protect members after ‘traumatizing’ reports of people being stopped or detained by agents

Nationwide, nearly 17,000 homes on tribal lands still need electricity hook-ups. A majority are spread across the Navajo Nation, where climate change is making it harder for families to keep cool. A mutual aid program, however, has helped to change lives.

"Relationality is a core principle of Indigenous studies, yet there is relatively little work that assesses what building relations looks like in practice, especially in the messy context of Native nations' governance. Focusing on the unique history and context of Osage nation building efforts, this insightful ethnography provides a deeper vision of the struggles Native nation leaders are currently facing. Exploring the Osage philosophy of moving to a new country as a framework for relational governance, Jean Dennison shows that for the Osage, nation building is an ongoing process of reworking colonial constraints to serve the nation's own ends. As Dennison argues, Osage officials have undertaken deliberate changes to strengthen Osage relations to their language, self-governance, health, and land-core needs for a people to thrive now and into the future. Scholars and future Indigenous leaders can learn from the Osage Nation's past challenges, strategies, and ongoing commitments to better enact the difficult work of Indigenous nation building"--

Environmental groups are also petitioning Biden to protect Sáttítla, Kw’tsán and Chuckwalla in California

Chuckwalla and Sáttítla monuments in California will be safeguarded against extraction and energy development

After four dams were blasted from the Klamath River, the work to restore the ecosystem is under way

After 170 years of armed attacks, forced relocations, ethnic cleansing, and genocide of Native Americans, the U.S. military wants to celebrate.

The word "squaw" was declared derogatory by the Department of Interior in 2021. Since then, hundreds of geographic features have been renamed with input from local tribes and Indigenous communities.

Our Mission: The Native American Rights Fund holds governments accountable. We fight to protect Native American rights, resources, and lifeways through litigation, legal advocacy, and legal expertise.

The American Indian College Fund provides scholarships and support for Native American students and tribal colleges and universities, and also supports programs for institutional growth and sustainability and cultural preservation.

First Nations Development Institute improves economic conditions for Native Americans through direct financial grants, technical assistance & training, and advocacy & policy.

"A powerful work of reportage and American history in the vein of Caste and How the Word Is Passed that braids the story of the forced removal of Native Americans onto treaty lands in the nation's earliest days, and a small-town murder in the '90s that led to a Supreme Court ruling reaffirming Native rights to that land over a century later"--;"A powerful work of reportage and American history that braids the story of the forced removal of Native Americans onto treaty lands in the nation's earliest days, and a small-town murder in the 1990s that led to a Supreme Court ruling reaffirming Native rights to that land more than a century later. Before 2020, American Indian reservations made up roughly 55 million acres of land in the United States. Nearly 200 million acres are reserved for National Forests--in the emergence of this great nation, our government set aside more land for trees than for Indigenous peoples. In the 1830s Muscogee people were rounded up by the US military at gunpoint and forced into exile halfway across the continent. At the time, they were promised this new land would be theirs for as long as the grass grew and the waters ran. But that promise was not kept. When Oklahoma was created on top of Muscogee land, the new state claimed their reservation no longer existed. Over a century later, a Muscogee citizen was sentenced to death for murdering another Muscogee citizen on tribal land. His defense attorneys argued the murder occurred on the reservation of his tribe, and therefore Oklahoma didn't have the jurisdiction to execute him. Oklahoma asserted that the reservation no longer existed. In the summer of 2020, the Supreme Court settled the dispute. Its ruling that would ultimately underpin multiple reservations covering almost half the land in Oklahoma, including Nagle's own Cherokee Nation. Here Rebecca Nagle recounts the generations-long fight for tribal land and sovereignty in eastern Oklahoma. By chronicling both the contemporary legal battle and historic acts of Indigenous resistance, By the Fire We Carry stands as a landmark work of American history. The story it tells exposes both the wrongs that our nation has committed and the Native-led battle for justice that has shaped our country." --

President Joe Biden has formally apologized to Native Americans for the “sin” of a government-run boarding school system that for decades forcibly separated children from their parents, calling it a “blot on American history” in his first visit to Indian Country.

The president of the Navajo Nation, one of the largest Native American tribes in the U.S., has removed responsibilities from his vice president.

It's a product of climate change, which is causing wetter conditions across the upper Midwest, and manmade change to the river, altering its flow.

Many Native Americans are coming together for Indigenous Peoples Day to celebrate and acknowledge the ongoing challenges they face with a focus on the election.

A complicated legal fight between the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and the Poarch Creek Indians could have ripple effects throughout Indian country

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, which wants the oil pipeline shut down, says spills near Lake Oahe were environmental violations.

Eight years after Standing Rock, water protectors are using novel anti-SLAPP laws to help expose the secrets oil companies want to hide.

The largest dam removal project in U.S. history has been completed near the California-Oregon border.

This is a description of the Federal Indian Boarding school program, the origins of Orange Shirt Day, and the relationship of the U.S. Federal Indian Boarding school program to Canada's residential school program.