Indigenous Rights Movements & the Law

Today, in the United States, there are 574 federally recognized Native American tribes.  These sovereign Nations produce thousands of statutes, regulations, and judicial opinions each year.  However, there is a lot of uncertainty and misunderstanding …

Searching for tribal court decisions is challenging, because there is no one comprehensive database. This video demonstrates searching in several sources: Fa...

In this article, I will canvass several themes of professionalism in tribal practice, drawing my tribal law experience. Many lawyers to undervalue — even disres

Tribal broadband investment got a $77 million influx comprised of 19 grants from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

The Interior Department has documented the deaths of more than 500 Indigenous children at Indian boarding schools run or supported by the federal government in the United States which operated from 1819 to 1969. The actual death toll is believed to be far higher, and the report located 53 burial sites at former schools. The report was ordered by the first Indigenous cabinet member, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, whose grandparents were forced to attend boarding school at the age of 8. “It’s kind of a misnomer to actually call these educational institutions or schools themselves when you didn’t have very many people graduating, let alone surviving the dire conditions of those schools,” says Nick Estes, historian and co-founder of The Red Nation. Estes says the institutions were part of a “genocidal process” of “dispossession and theft of Indigenous people’s lands and resources.”

Calls are growing for President Biden to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier, the 77-year-old imprisoned Native American activist who has spent 46 years behind bars for a crime he says he did not commit. Amnesty International considers Peltier a political prisoner, and numerous legal observers say his 1977 conviction for alleged involvement in killing two FBI agents in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation was riddled with irregularities and prosecutorial misconduct. “At this point, there’s no reason other than vindictive revenge for him to be in prison,” says writer and activist Nick Estes, co-founder of the Indigenous resistance group The Red Nation. “He survived COVID, he’s in poor health, and the man deserves to be with his people,” says Estes, who calls for a full congressional investigation into the deaths of Indigenous activists on Pine Ridge Reservation, where the shootout that led to Peltier’s arrest occurred.

While treaties between Indigenous peoples and the United States affect virtually every area in the USA, there is as yet no official list of all the treaties. The US National Archives holds 374 of the treaties, where they are known as the Ratified Indian Treaties. Here you can view them for the first time with key historic works that provide context to the agreements made and the histories of our shared lands.

Aboriginal, Native American, Indian, or Indigenous Peoples laws all generally refer to American laws relating to Native Americans, also known as American

Summary of H.R.5444 - 117th Congress (2021-2022): Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act

Native tribes are reliant on their local water sources, which have been continuously exploited and contaminated by the U.S. government and non-Native people. Indigenous groups are finding new ways to demand justice.

The new Arizona Native Scholars Grant program, the first of its kind in the state, will cover tuition and fees for full-time, in-state undergraduate students from Arizona's 22 federally recognized

On the second-to-last day of the 2021-22 term, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Oklahoma — and all other states — possesses concurrent jurisdiction with the federal government over crimes committed by non-Indians against Indians in Indian country, wiping away centuries of tradition and practice. Vi

Tribes across the U.S. and in Arizona are studying three Supreme Court decisions, and ponder what another case means for the future.

An 8-part series that tells the stories of four students: three who survived and one who didn’t. They attended one of Canada’s most notorious residential schools – where unsolved deaths, abuse, and lies haunt the community and the survivors to this day. Hosted by Duncan McCue. For the best in true crime from CBC, ad-free, visit apple.co/cbctruecrime.

Native Hawaiians have protested the $2.65bn project, saying it will further defile an area already harmed by other observatories

The University of Arizona has announced its new "Arizona Native Scholars Grant" program that will cover tuition and mandatory fees for full-time undergraduate students from Arizona's 22 federally recognized tribes who plan study at the main Tucson campus.

BARRE, Mass. (AP) — One by one, items purportedly taken from Native Americans massacred at Wounded Knee Creek emerged from the dark, cluttered display cases where they’ve sat for more than a century in a museum in rural Massachusetts.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho officials violated the federal Clean Air Act as well as the state’s regulations by issuing an air quality permit for a proposed gold mine in west-central Idaho, the Nez Perce Tribe and two conservation groups said.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, July 28th, 2022 Contact Natalie Cook 651-295-3483 Treaty Rights, Land and Water Pollution, and Climate at Issue in Clearwater County Case BAGLEY, MN – Today a Clearwater County Judge heard arguments with far-reaching implications for Indigenous treaty rights as they relate to extractive industry, land and water pollution, and climate change. In treaties with the United States, Anishinaabe peoples retained the right to engage in spiritual and cultural activities. I

Last month, the University of WI Law School hosted a weeklong legal boot camp culminating the National Tribal Trial College’s Certificate in Tribal Court Legal Advocacy.  This free, 6-month, skill-building course empowers laypersons to practice …

The program applies to undergraduate and graduate students who are members of federally recognized Native American, American Indian and Alaska Native tribes and will begin in the fall.

Tribe Chairman says the case may be “the most important Tribal Supreme Court case of our generation.”

We continue our Earth Day special by looking at how Indigenous peoples are protecting the Earth. We follow the journey of Ivey Camille Manybeads Tso, an awar...

Today's interview, with Dr. Katharina Ruckstuhl of the University of Otago, looks at why and how we should implement research infrastructure processes that support Indigenous knowledge.

QUESTION PRESENTED Whether the Maine Indian Settlement Acts— consistent with this Court’s precedents on statutory interpretation and the Indian canons of construction— codify the historical understanding of the Penobscot,Nation, the United States, and the State that the Penobscot Reservation encompasses the Main Stem of the Penobscot River.

The bill, which faces opposition from Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, passed 81-55 and now goes to the Senate.

Crimes against indigenous women are the subject of increasing public concern and awareness. Government officials – tribal, federal, and state – have established initiatives to address the disturbingly disproportionate rates of violent crimes perpetrated against indigenous women. The tools these gove

The Rappahannock Tribe, a Native Tribe in Virginia, has reacquired 465 acres of sacred land at Fones Cliff.