by Robert T. Coulter*

It has been just a year since President Obama announced the Administration’s support for the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and promised action to implement at least some of those rights.  Across the country, tribal governments are seizing the Declaration and using it creatively to protect their lands and resources, and especially their rights to cultural and sacred sites.

For example, the Navajo Nation has used the Declaration in its efforts to protect the San Francisco Peaks, and the Seneca Nation has pointed out Article 37 (“Indigenous peoples have the right to the recognition, observance and enforcement of treaties”) in its efforts to resolve a 60-year occupation of Seneca territory by the New York State Thruway that violates the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua. Continue reading →