New Scholarship from Grant Christensen: “A View from American Courts: The Year in Indian Law 2017”

On SSRN, here.

Abstract:

This paper summarizes the topics and trends in Indian law confronted by courts in 2017. Designed as an update that will be useful to practitioners as well as scholars, the paper breaks the discussion down into more than forty topics and subtopics. For this paper I tracked and read all 646 judicial opinions issued by state and federal courts that squarely decided questions of federal Indian law. From those cases I have distilled this update. Ideally the first in an annual collection. 

The paper includes an empirical discussion of Indian law looking at which circuits and districts are presented with the most Indian law questions. It also examines what topics receive the most coverage providing a summary of more than 200 ICWA opinions as well as capturing obscure topics like the 4 cases decided on the Navajo-Hopi Rehabilitation Act. It captures important moments in Indian law like Justice Thomas dissenting from denial of cert. in a land into trust case but also highlights the return of Leonard Peltier to federal court. 

I hope the user finds this comprehensive update a useful survey of Indian law in 2017.

Victoria Sweet on Human Security and Arctic Indigenous Women

Our own Victoria Sweet has published her paper, “Extracting More than Resources: Human Security and Arctic Indigenous Women,” in the Seattle University Law Review. It is available on SSRN.

Here is the abstract:

The circumpolar Arctic region is at the forefront of rapid change, and with change come concerns regarding potential security threats. While extractive industry development can bring economic benefits to an area, there are also human security concerns associated with these development projects. This has been acknowledged by groups that study the impact extractive industry development projects have on different geographic areas. However, most studies have looked at development projects in southern hemisphere countries or countries classified as “developing.” What has not been explored are human security concerns connected with extractive industry development projects within the “developed” countries like the United States. This Article will change that by focusing on the human security concerns connected to extractive industry development in the circumpolar region of the United States, particularly as these projects may threaten the security of indigenous women in the region.

New Scholarship on San Carlos Apache Water Rights

Daniel Lee has published his note, “Statutes of Ill Repose and Threshold Canons of Construction: A Unified Approach to Ambiguity After San Carlos Apache Tribe v. United States” in the Seattle University Law Review.

Here is the abstract:

Historically, the San Carlos Apache Tribe depended on the Gila River to irrigate crops and sustain a population of around 14,000 tribe members. The river is also sacred to the Tribe and central to the Tribe’s culture and spirituality. Initially, the federal government had recognized the Tribe’s dependence on the Gila River by reserving, under the Winters doctrine, water rights necessary to support the San Carlos Apache Reservation. Acting as the Tribe’s trustee, the United States entered into the Globe Equity Decree (the Decree), which prevented the San Carlos Apache Tribe from claiming water rights under the Winters doctrine and awarded significant water rights to private parties and other Indian tribes. In particular, this Note focuses on the Federal Circuit’s decision in 2011 that the San Carlos Apache Tribe could not seek damages against the United States for improperly diminishing the Tribe’s reserved water rights to the Gila River under the Decree because the court determined that the statute of limitations had run. This Note argues that the case was wrongly decided. It then proposes two new analytical devices to overcome the recent trend of courts denying remedies to tribes based on supposedly unambiguous language of treaties, statutes, and decrees.

Ann Tweedy’s “Unjustifiable Expectations” Published by Seattle U. Law Review

Ann E. Tweedy (Hamline Law) has published her paper “Unjustifiable Expectations: Laying to Rest the Ghosts of Allotment-Era Settlers” in the Seattle University Law Review.
Here is the abstract:

During the allotment era, the federal government took land from tribes and parceled some of it out to individual tribal members, while, in most cases, selling off the remainder to non-Indian settlers. Those actions, which are properly understood as unconstitutional takings, have been reinforced through decades of Supreme Court precedent. Specifically, the Court has used the now repudiated federal allotment policy, which contemplated eventual abolition of tribal governments, to justify contemporary incursions on tribal jurisdictional authority as well as other limitations on tribal sovereign rights. In this way, the Court builds new injustices upon old ones. This Article responds to this Supreme Court precedent with two main points. First, it shows that non-Indians at the time had notice that the allotment policy was unfair to tribes (and that they sometimes directly advocated for its injustices). From this information, I argue that non-Indian purchasers of tribal lands—and subsequent purchasers from them—should not be understood to have had justifiable expectations that the reservations would disappear and that they therefore could not be subject to tribal jurisdiction in the future. Second, I argue that the Supreme Court should stop using the troubled history of allotment, which it construes based on incomplete information and without taking account of tribal interests and perspectives, to justify further restrictions on tribal sovereignty. My purpose in this Article is to question both the substance of these presumed expectations and their justifiability. I begin this questioning with a thorough analysis of previously unexamined historical newspaper articles concerning non-Indian settlement of Indian reservations during the allotment era. I then argue that, as reflected by the above quote from Superintendent King, most non-Indians during the allotment period cared little about whether Indians were treated justly. Furthermore, I argue that many non-Indians had notice that tribes were being unjustly deprived of their lands through the allotment process, and that some non-Indians even advocated for this very injustice to occur. Both notice of injustice and complicity in the government’s unjust actions precluded non-Indian purchasers from forming justifiable expectations. This rigorous, context- specific look at non-Indian expectations suggests that, in sharp contrast to current Supreme Court practice, tribal jurisdiction over nonmembers should generally be upheld and Indian reservations should not generally be held to have been diminished or disestablished as a result of allotment.

“Train Wreck at the Justice Department” Posted on SSRN

This article from John McKay, one of the nine U.S. Attorneys ordered to resign by the Bush Administration in late 2006, has posted “Train Wreck at the Justice Department: An Eyewitness Account,” on SSRN. This paper is forthcoming in the Jan. 2008 issue of the Seattle University Law Review. It is a startling account of DC politics under George Bush.