An editorial in the Feb. 25 New York Times asked an interesting question: Should Corporations Have More Leeway to Kill Than People Do? Peter Weiss wrote about a U.S. Supreme Court case that will be heard next week with potential ramifications for American and international law, and for corporate responsibility for human rights. "The justices will be asked [...]

I have written about Indian and tribal trademark and copyright issues. You can get the article here; http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1573090 or at 13 Tulane J. Tech. & Intellectual Property 179 (2010).    Here is the text of the Navajo Nation Press Release Window Rock, Navajo Nation, Arizona   On February 28, 2012, the Navajo Nation initiated a [...]

The Seattle Times reports that the Confederated Colville Tribes accepted a $193 million settlement offer from the federal government for mismanaging tribal lands.  The Colville Tribes filed a lawsuit in 2005 alleging the U.S. government sold tribal timber and leased tribal rangelands for less than market value for many years. The Wenatchee World reports that [...]

The Choctaw Nation and the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma, both filed suit against that state in August 2011 over water rights. News From Indian Country reports on the case in its Feb. 2012 edition.  The leaders of both tribes issued statements this past week saying the lawsuit was necessary because the state proceeded with plans [...]

On December 1, 2011, Congressman Don Young, R-Ak, introduced the American Indian Empowerment Act of 2011 that would allow Native nations to request that the Secretary of the Interior take tribal lands out of trust status and convey them to the individual tribe.  This would convert federal trust lands to a restricted fee tribal land status. As [...]

I received this press release today – Onondaga Nation seeks justice and honoring of treaties despite courts, Doctrine ofDiscovery In part, the release states:  "On February 28, 2012, Onondaga Nation and other Haudenosaunee leaders will bring to Washington D.C. the wampum belt the first U.S. President, George Washington, commissioned for the Haudenosaunee to commemorate the 1794 [...]

An interesting fight over sunken treasure has been going on between the country of Spain and the treasure hunters who found $500 million worth of treasure in a sunken Spanish ship from the 1500s. A United States court recently ruled that the treasure belongs to Spain and not the salvagers because, under the law that governs [...]

On April 15, 2011, Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland Oregon put on a day long symposium entitled The Future of International Law in Indigenous Affairs: The Doctrine of Discovery, the United Nations, and the Organization of American States Speakers from Canada and the United States discussed various aspects of this theme. Lewis & [...]

American Indian governments and states have been fighting over the issue of state cigarette taxes since the 1970s.  The U.S. Supreme Court issued three decisions in this long battle in 1976, 1980, and 1994. Under the 1980 case, it seems certain that if tribes manufacture and package cigarettes on their reservations that they can do so free of state [...]

I just heard today that the World Council of Churches (WCC) has made a recent statement on the Doctrine of Discovery. You can read the full statement here: http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=8650 The executive committee of the WCC posted the statement on-line February 17 but at this time it is uncertain whether this means it is now an official statement of the WCC or [...]