Scholarship

UCLA Indigenous Peoples’ Journal of Law, Culture & Resistance Call for Submissions

February 2, 2026Matthew L.M. Fletcher

The Indigenous Peoples’ Journal of Law, Culture & Resistance (IPJLCR) is currently accepting submissions for Volume 12, which has a target publication date of Spring 2027. Submissions are being accepted until Sun., March 15, 2026. Email submissions and any questions to: ipjlcr@lawnet.ucla.edu.

IPJLCR is an interdisciplinary law journal housed at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law that focuses on Indigenous legal issues and publishes scholarly articles, legal commentary, poetry, songs, stories, artwork, and other media. We are soliciting scholarly articles, student comments, and art that centers on or relates to legal issues important to Indigenous communities in the United States and throughout the world. We also seek works on issues or aspects of life in Native communities that are impacted by law, whether tribal law or the laws of nation-states. To access past issues, please visit https://escholarship.org/uc/uclalaw_ipjlcr.

Requirements:

Each submission should be sent as one Microsoft Word file with Bluebook formatted citations (22nd ed. 2025) in footnotes;
Articles should be less than or equal to 50 pages and include 12 pt Times New Roman font for the body of the manuscript, 10 pt Times New Roman font for footnotes, 1-inch margins, and the author’s name, address, phone number, and email address in the header of the first page;
A brief biography.

2026 MLaw Indian Law Workshop — First Two Speakers

February 2, 2026Matthew L.M. Fletcher

More are coming:

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Tulsa Law Review Symposium Issue

January 22, 2026Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here:

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Fletcher’s Uncertainty Principle
Matthew L.M. Fletcher

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Tribes as Nations: The Future of the Trust Relationship
Adam Crepelle

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The Unenforceable Indian Trust
Ezra Rosser

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The New Existentialism in Indian Law
M. Alexander Pearl

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Fractionation by Design: Remedy Without Repair in Indigenous-Owned Trust Allotments
Jessica A. Shoemaker

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Tribal Co-Management on Ceded Lands: A New Era?
Michael C. Blumm and Adam Eno

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Original Comic: Tribal-Federal Symbiosis—An Aadioozaan
Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the abstract:

We commonly call the last fifty years of federal Indian law and policy the “tribal self-determination era.” This Piece argues that this era is actually three conceptually distinct though temporally overlapping phases of federal Indian law and policy development. Each of these three distinct phases is a step further dismantling the structures of federal paternalism and replacing them with laws and policies that support tribal nations’ strength, capacity, and autonomy. Paternalism has become, therefore, somewhat of an anti–North Star for the transformative federal Indian policies of the last fifty years and can continue to serve as that anti-guiding light for further federal Indian law and policy development. What makes this era challenging and noteworthy is that it is characterized by an instance of something unusual and difficult for a government: a commitment to giving up power.

Now this commitment is at a crossroads. The Biden Administration championed a third phase of policies with traditionally conservative, small government–minded commitments to start shrinking federal government bloat and promoting deference to or cooperation with local tribal decisionmaking. The Trump Administration must decide between conservative impulses to continue this work of shrinking unnecessary federal bureaucracy or more authoritarian impulses to increase the control that funding gives the executive branch over entities like tribal nations that rely on that funding.

Highly, highly recommended! Any forward-looking scholarship in this field is golden and this paper is simply brilliant.

Nazune Menka on Alaska Tribal Sovereignty

January 20, 2026Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Nazune Menka has published “The Corpus Juris of (Alaska Native) Inherent Tribal Sovereignty” in the Alaska Law Review.

Highly recommended!

Here is the abstract:

The inherent Tribal sovereignty of Native nations predates the formation of the United States and is reflected in the constitutional vision of tripartite sovereignty. Yet their sovereignty is oft diminished explicitly by federal law or implicitly by federal courts. This implicit divestiture is often the result of the federal judiciary’s inconsistent interpretations of Indigenous Peoples law. This Article argues that a more principled and coherent approach for federal judges would be to consistently make use of the corpus juris, or whole body of law, including the in pari materia or affiliated statutes canon. The Article posits that the corpus juris of inherent Tribal sovereignty requires understanding whether any federal laws have explicitly abrogated or diminished a specific Native nation’s rights to traditional self-governance and understanding traditional Tribal law. The corpus juris inherent Tribal sovereignty approach illustrates how, where the Supreme Court has utilized the in pari materia canon, the consistency and coherence of Indigenous Peoples law increases. Through an analysis of select cases, involving Native nation traditional land and ways of life, I illustrate how Alaska Native nations have been particularly impacted by the explicit and implicit diminishment of traditional ways of life. However, through traditionally informed governance systems, Alaska Native nations continue to assert their inherent Tribal sovereignty, especially when faced with Alaska’s “sole state sovereignty” arguments in federal courts. The Article utilizes the corpus juris of inherent Tribal sovereignty argument and the constitutional vision of tripartite sovereignty to illustrate how the State of Alaska’s “sole state sovereignty” arguments must fail when utilizing this more coherent approach.

Past Blast — Tim Coulter on the Lack of Redress for Indian Claims, Civil Rights Digest, 1978

January 16, 2026Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Tim Coulter — Lack of Redress.pdf Download

Monte Mills on Indian Treaties and the Washington Supreme Court

January 12, 2026Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Monte Mills has published “From Winans to Wallahee: Treaties, the Washington State Supreme Court, and the Pursuit of a More Just Rule of Law” in the Washington Law Review.

Here is the abstract:

The relationship between the United States federal government, the states, and Native Nations has long been at the core of federal Indian law. From the earliest decades of its jurisprudence, for example, the United States Supreme Court struggled in its efforts to analyze and define the rights, authorities, and interactions of Native Nations within and in relation to the evolving structure of constitutional federalism. Treaties between the United States and Native Nations were central to those decisions and provided a necessary, constitutional check against state interests intent on eliminating sovereign Native Nations. Those constitutional and structural implications thus go well beyond federal Indian law and provide important—but often overlooked—insight into the health and stability of fundamental aspects of our legal system as a whole and, therefore, the rule of law itself. Here in Washington, the Washington State Supreme Court developed its own approach to analyzing and interpreting treaty rights, which, for much of the first half of the twentieth century, largely ignored or dismissed treaties and rights reserved thereunder in favor of state interests. More recently, however, the state’s highest court has embarked on an effort to reassess and reckon with its role in perpetrating and perpetuating historical injustices. That effort has resulted in a series of decisions reconsidering the Court’s own treaty-related jurisprudence and, therefore, offers a timely and critically important opportunity to consider the potential and promise of this work. In the spirit of the 125th anniversary of the founding of the University of Washington School of Law and the centennial volume of Washington Law Review, this Article considers the fundamental issues posed by treaty-related questions and aims to draw lessons from the Washington State Supreme Court’s recent efforts to address historical injustices that might inform other, similar efforts across the country. Situating that assessment within the context of treaty rights and the sovereignty of Native Nations illustrates the power of this work to catalyze a deeper and broader reckoning with crucial questions of justice and the rule of law.

Highly recommended.