MSU Indigenous Graduate Student Collective Hosts First Conference Today

About the Indigenous Gradate School Collective (featuring several MSU law students).

Conference materials here:

Anishinabeg e-maawizijig gizhiikamoowad akinoowamaadiwinan

First Annual Indigenous Graduate Student Collective Symposium

Building Campus and Community Bridges

Friday, March 15, 2013

9am-3:30pm

Kresge Art Center, Rooms 41 and 108

 Register for the Symposium Here

Symposium Flyer

Parking Map

There are a few handicap parking places right next to the building otherwise the map can direct you to visitor parking.

Schedule Continue reading

Singel and Fletcher Talk at Cornell

Rose Petoskey, GTB member and Cornell NALSA president

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Wenona Singel

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Cornell’s excellent A:kwe:kon hall

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Pre-College Summer Program at Michigan State

Website here.

The Native American Business Institute is a week-long pre-college summer program for Native American high school students that will be in the 10th, 11th, or 12th grade during the Fall 2013- Spring 2014 school year. Participants work with MSU admissions officers, college counselors, tribal community leaders, and corporate representatives in a seven-day “business boot-camp” that prepares students for the college and exposes them to numerous academic and professional opportunities.

Seattle U. Indian Estate Planning Summer Internship

PAID SUMMER INDIAN ESTATE PLANNING INTERNSHIP!

Application Deadline: April 15, 2013
Job Description: The summer Indian Estate Planning Project provides exceptional direct client experiences that few law student summer internships offer. In our ninth year, the Project places specially trained second and third year law students from ABA accredited schools on Indian reservations throughout Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Wisconsin and Montana. This internship embodies important services for Indian trust land owners that are not provided by any other organization in the country outside of a few legal service offices and a few specially trained private practitioners. The Project provides these services at no cost to clients and without regard to clients’ income.

Duties: Interns attend a one week, fully paid, training session beginning on May 20th at Seattle University School of Law on the history of federal laws and policies creating trust lands and fractionation, trust and non-trust estate planning under federal, state and tribal laws, the federal probate process, the American Indian Probate Reform Act, professional responsibility, will drafting and working within reservation communities. Upon completing the training, interns will serve one assigned tribal community for 10 weeks, providing information on Indian estate planning, interviewing clients, drafting and executing wills, living wills, and related documents. You must have your own vehicle, laptop, and in some instances, relocation for the summer is required.

Qualifications: Students must be in their second or third years of law school and have taken a Wills and Trusts class. A background in Indian Law is a plus but is not required.
Employer Information: The Institute for Indian Estate Planning and Probate is located at Seattle University School of Law and is a project of the Center for Indian Law & Policy.
Application Materials: Please submit: (i) cover letter, (ii) resume, (iii) unofficial transcript, (iv) 3 references to Erica Wolf at wolfer@seattleu.edu.
Salary: Approximately $5500 gross + travel/relocation expenses.

Fletcher/Singel Talks at Cornell Law School — March 12, 2013

Here:

Cornell NALSA 3-12

Fletcher’s paper on tribal amicus briefs in the Supreme Court is here.

2013 National NALSA Moot Court Winners

Congratulations to all!!!!

Here:

21st Annual National NALSA Moot Court Competition

Results:

Best Team

  1. Catherine Hall & Caycie K. Gusman (Team 10 from Hawaii)
  2. Jenny Patten & Natasha Bronn (Team 9 from Columbia)
  3. Veronica Newcomer & Rachel Kowarski (Team 33 from William Mitchell)

Highest Brief Score

  1. Zachary Dilonno & Sommerset Wong (Team 39 from Hawaii)
  2. Andrew Sangster & Jacob Wolf (Team 17 from Columbia)
  3. Anthony Franken & Steven Iverson (Team 66  from University of South Dakota)

Best Oral Advocate

  1. Catherine Hall (Hawaii)
  2. Ryan McCarthy (William Mitchell)
  3. Rachel Kowarski (William Mitchell)

And here are the teams that advanced to the elimination rounds: Continue reading

NNALSA Moot Court Final Round

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The final teams are from Columbia and University of Hawaii. An all women final!! Congratulations to both teams.

 

“The Indians Won” — A Blast from the Past — And a Shout-Out to Law Students

At Sam Deloria’s mention, I found a copy of the long out of print 1970 novel by Martin Cruz Smith (better known for the Arkady Renko mysteries), “The Indians Win”, and read it. It’s a short read. And fun. The edition I have includes commentary from the author who states he researched Indians for a couple months, then wrote the novel in one month. Not to give away the plot (spoiler alert), but in this fictional world, the Indians win. Yeah, the ‘Nishnaabes don’t get much play — it’s all Sitting Bull and Stand Watie and Wovoka — but the Potawatomis get a few good ones in.

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For those not in the know about this novel, here is a quick plot summary. In 1876, rather than Custer’s Last Stand being the Indians’ last stand, all the remaining Indian tribes of the plains and the far west band together. Armed with European arms smuggled down from Canada through Dakota, the Indians win a bunch of military clashes with a post-Civil War American military that doesn’t put up much of a fight. It all ends up with … You guessed it … The Indians winning. Speculative fiction at its early 1970s best and funnest. The best part of the subplot is the 1952 declaration by the “Indian Nation” that they have bomb, but are unwilling to prove to the world they have the bomb by testing it because to do so would unnecessarily injure Mother Earth.

It reminds me of the National NALSA moot court competition. Year after year, law students gather to compete in a fictional world that could be like the one where “The Indians Win.” If you’re like me and you think of this reality as one reality in a universe of infinite parallel … universes, then why can’t the Indians win after all? How else could a dude like me marry the most beautiful and brilliant Odawa woman in the world?

In the end, I say this — have a great competition, law students. The National NALSA Moot Court Competition should be fun. Anything, absolutely anything can happen. US News rankings fly right out the window. Make friends, renew old friendships, network like crazy, and crush your opposition with an iron boot.

MSU International Law Review Symposium on the Arctic

Our own Victoria Sweet — the 2013-14 ILPC Fellow — has organized an amazing legal symposium — “Battle for the North: Is All Quiet on the Arctic Front?” She put together an amazing line-up of international scholars — and the leader of the US Coast Guard will unveil a new strategic approach to the Arctic at the conference.Polar Bear

Here is the symposium website. And here is the description:

This symposium will highlight the current concerns and questions surrounding the Arctic. The event will raise awareness of and encourage discussion about various topics such as: international security concerns; indigenous people in the Arctic region; environmental law; regulation, governance and management of Arctic lands and resources; exploration, exploitation, and transportation of oil, gas, and minerals; and the law of the sea.

Papers will be published in the Michigan State International Law Review.

Agenda:

Thursday, February 21, 2013
5:00 p.m. Check In: Kellogg Hotel & Conference Center, Big Ten C
5:30 p.m. Reception
6:00 p.m. Dinner
7:00 p.m. Opening Remarks
Victoria Sweet, Executive Editor, Michigan State International Law Review

Bruce W. Bean, Professor and Michigan State International Law Review Faculty Advisor, Michigan State University College of Law, International Law Review Faculty Advisor

7:15 p.m. Keynote
Lawson Brigham, “The New Maritime Arctic: Global Connections and Complex Challenges”
7:45 p.m. The Impacts of Climate Change
Moderator: Jennifer Carter-Johnson, Assistant Professor, Michigan State University College of Law
Sumudu Atapattu, “Climate Change, Indigenous Peoples and the Arctic: The Changing Horizon of International Law”
Avi Brisman, “Climate Change and the Future of the Arctic: Cultural and Environmental Considerations”
8:30 p.m. Closing Remarks
Friday, February 22, 2013
8:00 a.m. Breakfast and Registration: MSU College of Law Castle Boardroom
8:45 a.m. Opening Remarks
Dean Joan W. Howarth, Dean, Michigan State University College of Law
9:00 a.m. Keynote
Rear Admiral Frederick J. Kenney Jr., “The U.S. Coast Guard and the Challenge of the Arctic”
9:35 a.m. Arctic Governance
Moderator: Michael Lawrence, Associate Dean, Michigan State University College of Law
Waliul Hasanat, “Reforming the Arctic Council against Increasing Climate Change Challenges in the North”
Tanja Joona, “ILO Convention 69 and the Governance of Indigenous Nordic Lands”
Tony Penikett & Adam Goldenberg, “Devolution & Democracy – Equal Citizenship in Canada’s North”
Danielle Sibener Pensley, “Subsistence as Resistance: Implications of Environmental Ethics for Property Law”
10:45 a.m. Coffee Break
11:05 a.m. Shipping & The Law of the Sea
Moderator: Beverly Moran, Visiting Professor, Michigan State University College of Law, (visiting from Vanderbilt University College of Law)
Erik Franckx, “The Northern Sea Route Shipping Season 2012: A First Assessment”
Donald R. Rothwell, “International Law and Arctic Shipping”
Ingvild Jakobsen, “The Adequacy of the Law of the Sea and International Environmental Law to the Arctic Ocean”
12:05 a.m. Lunch
12:40 p.m. Keynote
Timo Koivurova, “Final Battle over the ‘Final’ Hydrocarbon Province – the Arctic”
1:15 p.m Indigenous Peoples’ Resources and Lands
Moderator: Wenona Singel, Associate Professor, Michigan State University College of Law
Dorothee Cambou, “Control over Resources: A Prerequisite for the Realization of the Arctic Indigenous Right to Self-Determination”
Tim Heleniak, “The Migration of Arctic Populations”
Susann Funderud Skogvang, “Legal Questions Regarding Mineral Exploration and Exploitation in Indigenous Areas: Examples from Sami Areas in Norway”
Rutherford Hubbard, “Risk, Rights and Responsibility: Navigating Corporate Responsibility and Indigenous Rights in Greenlandic Extractive Industry Development”
2:25 p.m. Coffee Break
2:45 p.m. Natural Resources
Moderator: Noga Morag-Levine, Professor, Michigan State University College of Law
Andrew van Wagner, “A Heating Competition for Unclaimed Resources”
Vladimir Gladyshev, “Delimitation Issues: Cutting up the Arctic Pie”
Nikolas Sellheim, “The Neglected Tradition? – The Crafting of the EU Seal Products Ban and Commercial Sealing”
Betsy Baker, “Governance of the Marine Arctic for Resource Development”
3:55 p.m. Coffee Break
4:15 p.m. Arctic Security
Moderator: John Reifenberg, Professor, Michigan State University College of Law
Adele Buckley, “Arctic Nuclear-Weapon-Free Treaty Ratification by Non-Nuclear Weapons States Models Cooperation and Presses Nuclear Weapon States to New Strategy”
Natalia Loukacheva, “Polar Law, Arctic Security and Geo-Political Trends”
Zhixiong Huang, “Governance of the Arctic: The Role of China”
5:15 p.m. Closing Remarks

Udall Native American Congressional Internship Program

The Udall Foundation is currently recruiting Native American and Alaska Native students to apply to our Internship program.

Please feel free to forward the message to students and faculty and any relevant listservs.

This ten-week summer internship in Washington, DC, for Native American and Alaska Native students who wish to learn more about the federal government and issues affecting Indian country.

The internship is fully funded: the Foundation provides:

  • · Round-trip airfare;
  • · Housing;
  • · Per-diem for food and incidentals;
  • · An educational stipend at the close of the program.

Interns work in congressional and agency offices where they have opportunities to research legislative issues important to tribal communities, network with key public officials and tribal advocacy groups, experience an insider’s view of the federal government, and enhance their understanding of nation-building and tribal self-governance.

The 2013 application is available at www.udall.gov. The complete application package must be postmarked by January 31, 2013, at the Udall Foundation.

Additional Resources:

If you have any questions additional questions, please contact me directly at 520-901-8561 or at bravo@udall.gov.