The settlement of Indian water rights cases remains one of the thorniest legal issues in this country, particularly in the West. In this volume Colby, Thorson, and Britton present an in-depth treatment of the many complex issues that arise in negotiating and implementing Indian water rights settlements. Tribal Water Rights brings together practicing attorneys and leading scholars in the fields of law, economics, public policy, and conflict resolution to examine issues that continue to confront the settlement of tribal claims. With coverage ranging from the differences between surface water and groundwater disputes to the distinctive nature of Pueblo claims, and from allotment-related problems to the effects of the Endangered Species Act on water conflicts, the book presents the legal aspects of tribal water rights and negotiations along with historical perspectives on their evolution.

John E. Thorson is Special Master for Arizona General Stream Adjudication. Appointed by the Arizona Supreme Court, he is the chief judicial hearing officer in both the Gila River and Little River adjudications. He has served as regional counsel for the Western Governors' Conference; director of the Conference of Western Attorneys General; consultant to the Montana state government; and director of the Missouri River Management Project for the Northern Lights Institute.

Sarah Britton, a graduate of the University of Arizona College of Law, is an attorney with the Public Defender in Sacramento.

Bonnie G. Colby is Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Arizona and coauthor of Water Markets in Theory and Practice.

www.uapress.arizona.edu

Edited by Eric D. Lemont

Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006
KF8221.A44 2006

From the Publisher

Since 1975, when the U.S. government adopted a policy of self-determination for American Indian nations, a large number of the 562 federally recognized nations have seized the opportunity to govern themselves and determine their own economic, political, and cultural futures. As a first and crucial step in this process, many nations are revising constitutions originally developed by the U.S. government to create governmental structures more attuned to native people's unique cultural and political values.

This book brings together for the first time the writings of tribal reform leaders, academics, and legal practitioners to offer a comprehensive overview of American Indian nations' constitutional reform processes and the rebuilding of native nations. The book is organized in three sections. The first part investigates the historical, cultural, economic, and political motivations behind American Indian nations' recent reform efforts. The second part examines the most significant areas of reform, including criteria for tribal membership/citizenship and the reform of governmental institutions. The book concludes with a discussion of how American Indian nations are navigating the process of reform, including overcoming the politics of reform, maximizing citizen participation, and developing short-term and long-term programs of civic education.

About the Author

Eric D. Lemont, a lawyer at Goodwin, Proctor, LLP in Boston, Massachusetts, is a Research Fellow at the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development and the founding director of its Initiative on American Indian Constitutional Reform.

Additional Information Online

www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/lemame.html

 Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2005
KF8210.C5W55 2005

From the Publisher

Beginning with Chief Justice John Marshall’s foundational opinions in the early nineteenth century and continuing today in the judgments of the Rehnquist Court, Williams shows how undeniably racist language and precedent are still used in Indian law to justify the denial of important rights of property, self-government, and cultural survival to Indians. Building on the insights of Malcolm X, Thurgood Marshall, and Frantz Fanon, Williams argues that racist language has been employed by the courts to legalize a uniquely American form of racial dictatorship over Indian tribes by the U.S. government.

Williams concludes with a revolutionary proposal for reimagining the rights of American Indians in international law, as well as strategies for compelling the current Supreme Court to confront the racist origins of Indian law and for challenging bigoted ways of talking, thinking, and writing about American Indians.

About the Author

Robert A. Williams, Jr. is professor of law and American Indian studies at the James E. Rogers College of Law, University of Arizona. A member of the Lumbee Indian Tribe, he is author of The American Indian in Western Legal Thought: The Discourses of Conquest and coauthor of Federal Indian Law.

Additional Information Online

www.upress.umn.edu/Books/W/williams_like.html

 

 


Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2006 KF8210.N37D87 2006

From the Publisher

This book traces more than a century of legal, political, and social battles waged by Columbia River Indians as they fought for the survival of wild salmon and their inherent right to harvest them. Many of the stories focus on Celilo Falls, a place of captivating natural beauty and spirituality that also served as a trade center for tribes throughout the Northwest. Celilo Falls disappeared under the backwaters of The Dalles dam in March of 1957.

The stories are told through the eyes and words of the people, especially the Indian people, who lived through them — from the 1855 Walla Walla Treaty Council proceedings through the fraudulent purchase of the Warm Springs Tribe’s fishing rights (via the so-called Huntington Treaty) to the negotiations and payments made for the flooding of Celilo Falls. Each chapter features the creative (and often highly effective) legal means invoked by the Indians to protect their fisheries and their way of life. Several documents of historical value are reproduced in the appendix.

About the Authors

Joseph Dupris, Ph.D., J.D., (Lakota – Cheyenne River Sioux) and Kathleen Hill, J.D., LL.M., (Klamath/Modoc/Paiute) are co-founders of Quail Plume Enterprises.

William H. Rodgers, Jr. is the Stimson Bullitt Professor of Environmental Law at the University of Washington School of Law.

Additional Information Online

http://www.cap-press.com/books/1446