A Michigan independent news network reports that the Saik’uz First Nation of British Columbia has refused and offer by the Enbridge company of $1.5 billion and a 10% stake in a pipeline project that would move tar sands oil across their territory. The Financial Post reports that although the average yearly income in the community [...]

News From Indian Country reports on the United Houma Nation and the more than 20,000 American Indians in coastal Louisiana who trace their roots to Houma, Chitimacha, Choctaw, and Biloxi tribes. Even before the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last spring, Louisiana’s American-Indian fishing villages were on the brink of collapse because of [...]

I just received an email with news that somehow I missed in January 2010. Apparently, the news reported back then that Dennison, a Canadian company, had started uranium mining under some kind of international agreement on the north side of the Grand Canyon. This action was opposed by native peoples in the region and was [...]

In the Autumn of 2010, Kainaiwa Resources Inc. (KRI) – a corporation wholly-owned by the Blood Tribe in Canada- signed an agreement with Murphy Oil and Bowood Energy. The Blood Tribe will receive at least $50 million and potentially more in the future. The deal is a five-year lease which allows access to approximately 50% [...]

The Los Angeles Times reported on a law suit by the Native American group La Cuna de Aztlan Sacred Sites Protection Circle and environmentalists to block six enormous solar projects approved by the Department of the Interior. The projects include BrightSource Energy’s 3,600-acre solar facility in San Bernardino County’s Ivanpah Valley, where work began in [...]

I just posted a 25,000 word article on SSRN entitled “Brazil, Indigenous Peoples, and the International Law of Discovery.” I co-wrote the article with a native of Brazil. In this article, we examine the legal history of Portugal and Brazil and conclude that Portugal applied the international law Doctrine of Discovery to claim and colonize [...]

The Mohawk Councils of Kahnawà:ke, Tyendinaga and Akwesasne issued a joint statement Feb. 9 rejecting the planned shipment of nuclear waste through the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway system. They are protesting the Feb. 4 decision of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) to give Bruce Power one full year to get 16 containers [...]

I will be speaking on the radio on Tuesday Feb. 22, 2011 from 10 am – noon Pacific Standard Time about the Doctrine of Discovery. I will be on Spingola Speaks, on Republic Broadcasting Network (RBN). RBN is heard nationally and internationally. Check out the guest Schedule: http://www.spingola.com/radio_schedule.html

I have received a statement made Wednesday in Australia on Aboriginal rights. Here it is in part (edited without notation): “Australia has faced questioning at the United Nations regarding its Indigenous policies. The failure to restore the rights of Aboriginal people is currently being scrutinised under the Universal Periodic Review process of the UN Human [...]

The Kashia Pomo Tribe in Sonoma County California won a victory in defense of their tribal fishing and gathering rights. The California Fish and Game Commission voted to allow the Tribe to continue gathering and conducting ceremonies in a marine protected area at Stewarts Point. The decision made permanent a temporary provision that the Commission [...]