Aboriginal Law & Indigenous Laws

Covering 1867 through 2011, the authors offer lucid explanations of the often-tangled history of policy and law as applied to Alaska's first peoples. Divided conceptually into four broad themes of indigenous rights to land, subsistence, services, and sovereignty, the book offers a thorough and balanced analysis of the evolution of these rights.

Integrating American law and Native American political and legal traditions, this encyclopedia includes detailed descriptions of nearly two dozen Native American Nations' legal and political systems such as the Iroquois, Cherokee, Choctaw, Navajo, Cheyenne, Creek, Chickasaw, Comanche, Sioux, Pueblo, Mandan, Wyandot, Powhatan, Mikmaq, and Yakima.

Due to a complicated system of criminal jurisdiction, non-Native Americans can commit crimes against American Indians in much of Indian Country with virtual impunity. This has created what some call a modern day "hunting ground" in which Native women are specifically targeted by non-Native men for sexual violence. Amy L. Casselman exposes the shameful truth of how the American government has systematically divested Native nations of the basic right to protect the people in their own communities.

This book focuses on the history of Indian peoples engaging in consultation, a process mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act and the Indian Religious Freedom Act whenever a federal agency's proposed action will affect land of significance to Indigenous peoples.

What explains the existence of separate, semi-sovereign nations within the larger American nation? In large part it has been victories won at the Supreme Court that have preserved the opportunity for Native Americans to 'make their own laws and be ruled by them.' The Supreme Court could have gone further, creating truly sovereign nations with whom the United States could have negotiated on an equal basis. The Supreme Court could also have done away with tribes and tribalism with the stroke of a pen. Instead, the Court set a compromise course, declaring tribes not fully sovereign but also something far more than a mere social club. This book describes several of the most famous Supreme Court cases impacting the course of Native American history.

This book covers the basics of federal Indian law, the relationships between tribal, state, and federal sovereigns, also touching on federalism, agency law, civil rights, and criminal jurisdiction aspects of Indian law.

This book examines complex Indian nations' tribal justice systems, analyzing tribal statutory law, tribal case law, and the cultural values of Native peoples. Using tribal court opinions and tribal codes, it reveals how tribal governments use a combination of oral and written law to dispense justice and strengthen their nations and people.

This book brings together diverse essays by leading Indian law scholars across the disciplines of Indigenous and environmental law. The chapters reveal the difficulties encountered by Native American tribes in attempts to establish their own environmental standards within federal Indian law and environmental law structures. Gleaning new insights from a focus on tribal land and property law, the collection studies the practice of tribal sovereignty as experienced by Indians and non-Indians, with an emphasis on the development and regulatory challenges these tribes face in the wake of climate change.