Scholarship

Public Land & Resources Law Review Call for Papers

Sarah M Donnelly

The Public Land & Resources Law Review is currently accepting submissions for potential publication in the upcoming issue, our 38th volume.  Helmed by students at the Alexander Blewett III School of Law at the University of Montana, the Public Land & Resources Law Review serves as a vital resource providing high quality articles on issues relevant to public land, natural resources, environmental, and federal Indian law for practitioners and scholars across the country.  The Public Land and Resources Law Review accepts articles and abstracts for consideration from students, practitioners, and law school faculty members.

If you are interested in submitting an article, please contact Maresa Jenson, Publication Editor, at maresa.jenson@umconnect.umt.edu, by February 15, 2017.  Articles will be considered on a rolling basis. We look forward to working with you to publish your scholarship.

Sincerely,

Editors of the Public Land & Resources Law Review

Interview with Kristen Carpenter on Indian Rights

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is “A tension as old as the country: Legal scholars put focus on Native American rights,”published in Harvard Law Today. Also in the Harvard Gazette.

Kirsten Carlson on Lobbying Congress for Federal Recognition of Indian Tribes

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Kirsten Matoy Carlson has posted “Why Lobby Congress? Constitutive and Instrumental Influences on Indian Groups’ Strategies for Federal Recognition, 1977-2012” on SSRN. This paper is highly recommended.

Here is the abstract:

When and why do marginalized groups chose a particular institutional venue when pursuing their legal claims? This article combines theoretical and methodological insights from sociolegal and interest group studies to investigate why non-federally recognized Indian groups used legislative strategies for federal recognition from 1977 to 2012. It finds Indian groups employed legislative strategies both to increase their chances of success and for constitutive purposes, including educating the public and leveraging institutional tensions. The article’s emphasis on constitutive and instrumental motivations provides a more nuanced approach to understanding marginalized groups’ venue decisions.

U.S. Supreme Court Grants Cert in Lee v. Tam

Kate Fort

Here.

This case addresses the same issue brought up by Pro-Football v. Blackhorse (section 2(a) of the Lanham Act), which is currently in the 4th Circuit. Pro-Football, Inc. petitioned the Court to skip the 4th Circuit and be joined to the Tam v. Lee case if it was granted here. There is no decision on that at this time.

Pro-Football v. Blackhorse coverage here.

Tam v. Lee coverage here.

Story from Law360 here.

Thanks to SD for the heads up.

U.S. Supreme Court Grants Cert in Lewis v. Clarke

Kate Fort

Order list here.

Question Presented: Whether the sovereign immunity of an Indian tribe bars individual-capacity damages actions against tribal employees for torts committed within the scope of their employment.

Previous coverage here.

New Indian Law Papers (9/22/2016)

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From SSRN:

Unwinding Non-Native Control over Native America’s Past: A Statistical Analysis of the Decisions to Return Native American Human Remains and Funerary Objects under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, 1992–2013
University of Hawaii Law Review, Vol. 38, 2016
Jason C. Roberts
U.S. Department of State
Date Posted: September 21, 2016

Returning to the Tribal Environmental ‘Laboratory’: An Examination of Environmental Enforcement Techniques in Indian Country
Elizabeth Ann Kronk Warner
University of Kansas – School of Law
Date Posted: September 20, 2016

The Great Sioux Nation V. The ‘Black Snake’: Native American Rights and the Keystone Xl Pipeline
Buffalo Human Rights Law Review, Vol. 22, No. 67, 2016
Cindy Woods
International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR)
Date Posted: September 13, 2016

Traditional Problems: How Tribal Same-Sex Marriage Bans Threaten Indian Sovereignty
William Mitchell Law Review, Forthcoming
Marcia Anne Yablon-Zug
University of South Carolina School of Law

Harvard Law’s Indigenous Rights Conference Agenda

Sarah M Donnelly1 Comment

Download agenda here.  Conference is in Massachusetts on October 13-14, 2016.

Indian Law Resource Center: Indigenous Notes

Sarah M Donnelly

The World Bank Approves Indigenous Peoples Policy

This month, the World Bank’s board of directors approved a new Environmental and Social Framework, modernizing a decades old set of policies aimed at preventing Bank-funded development projects from harming the environment and people. (More …)

About the American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

The American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples will help protect our self-determination rights, our rights to our territories and natural resources, our right to sustainable development and to the healthy environment on which indigenous peoples physical and cultural survival depends. It will also help to ensure respect for the practices, traditions, laws, and cultural values of indigenous people. (More …)

Mayan leadership learns how to hold development banks accountable for human rights violations

Multilateral development banks play a key role in financing large-scale development projects, such as dams and forestry initiatives, that have often had devastating impacts on indigenous people and their communities. The Center led a workshop on the United Nations System and multilateral development banks for the traditional and ancestral authorities of the Mayan Nation. (More …)

Indian Law Resource Center chairwoman appointed to top UN body on indigenous issues

Terri Henry, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Secretary of State and chairwoman of the Indian Law Resource Center board of directors, is one of 16 experts tapped to serve on the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. She will begin her three-year term on January 1, 2017. (More …)

Minnesota tribes learn about engaging in the UN

Tribal leaders from the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe and other Minnesota Indian Affairs Council representatives met with Indian Law Resource Center lawyers August 4, 2016, for a high-level workshop about how to engage in the United Nations system to protect tribal lands, sovereignty, and cultures. (More …)

Indigenous Law Journal Call for Submissions

Sarah M Donnelly

The Indigenous Law Journal, Volume 16,
 CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS DEADLINE: SEPTEMBER 30, 2016

The Indigenous Law Journal is dedicated to developing dialogue and scholarship in the field of Indigenous legal issues, both within Canada and internationally. We encourage submissions from all perspectives on these issues. Our central concerns are Indigenous legal systems and the interaction of other legal systems with Indigenous peoples. We are the only legal periodical in Canada with this focus. We welcome the addition of your voice to the discussion. For full details on the submissions process, requirements, and student awards, please see: ilj.law.utoronto.ca We now accept recorded oral submissions.

Please contact the Submissions Manager prior to making an oral submission, or to submit written work: submissions.ilj@utoronto.ca. Please address questions to Sinéad Charbonneau & Jesse Waslowski, Co-Editors-in Chief: indiglaw.journal@utoronto.ca.

Joel West Williams on Five Civilized Tribes’ Treaty Rights to Water Quality

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Joel West Williams has posted “The Five Civilized Tribes’ Treaty Rights to Water Quality and Mechanisms of Enforcement” on SSRN.

Here is the abstract:

This thesis focuses on the treaty rights to water quality of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole tribes (collectively referred to as the “Five Civilized Tribes”). Although each tribe is an independent, sovereign nation, the tribes share a collective history as the largest and most dominant tribes in what is now the southeastern United States and the eventual forced removal from their respective ancestral homelands to lands in the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) in the 1830s. The legal mechanism for accomplishing this forced relocation was “removal treaties” between the United States and each of the five tribal governments, which the United States pursued under the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Although these treaties had tragic consequences, the United States made promises and vested legal rights (in the new homelands) in exchange for these tribes vacating their ancestral homelands. This thesis will examine whether the property rights in their new tribal homelands in Indian Territory include enforceable rights to water quality.