American Indian Law Journal

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Volume 14, Issue 1 (2026)Read More

Current Articles

    • Article14 January 2026

      Legal History: The Curious Case of the Disappearing Unceded Lakota Territories

      Sebastian Braun
      This Article discusses whether the Lakota Nation still has title to the unceded territories outlined in the Treaty of 1868. While many accounts focus on the supposed diminishment of the Great Sioux Reservation, the question of the unceded lands has largely been forgotten. It has renewed relevance in the context of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which crosses the lands. From a broader perspective, the case raises questions about how history is understood, constructed, and selected in American Indian Law cases. Most legal cases, especially those concerning treaty rights, are rooted in an interpretation of history; if that history is misinterpreted in court, the decisions can be misinformed. In this instance, the history of the Treaty of 1868 has been consistently misinterpreted by courts for over a century. However, comparing the Treaty text to court decisions in a close reading shows that the Lakota Nation should still have title to the unceded lands.
    • Article14 January 2026

      The Tribal Rules of Evidence

      Nicole Morote
      Rules of evidence shape litigation practice across the country. In this sense, they govern the truth as it enters the court. Legal scholarship has yet to study tribal approaches to evidence— an area with tremendous promise for legal practitioners and evidence rulemakers alike. This Article is the first to do so. It analyzes an array of tribal evidence codes across the United States. It reveals three frameworks that describe tribes’ approaches to the Federal Rules. In doing so, it offers a modest contribution to the nascent intersection between Tribal law and evidence studies: crucial insight into tribal systems’ unique needs, policy aims, and perspective on what it means to “do justice.”
    • Article14 January 2026

      Workers’ Compensation Codes in American Indian* Tribal Nations

      Autumn Siegel
      This Article examines various Tribal Nations’ experiences in developing their own workers’ compensation systems using a comparative law and legal development approach, including direct interviews with a diverse range of tribal members. Tribal Nations’ self-created workers’ compensation codes predominantly rely on local models and expertise to establish and operate their systems. However, Tribal Nations also infuse their own cultural values into their codes, incorporating tribal perspectives and priorities such as valuing traditional medicine and peace-making alternative dispute resolution, providing more generously to volunteers, and incorporating return-to-work programs into their workers’ compensation systems. Some Tribal Nations also find it necessary to include additional provisions that are not present in state codes to ensure their codes’ practical effectiveness. Many Tribal Nations continue to refine these systems, and flexibility as governments allows them to effectively respond to present challenges and strengthen the performance of their workers’ compensation systems in the future
    • Article14 January 2026

      Native History Is United States History: How United States History Censorship Leads to Passive Acceptance of Racial Discrimination and Furthers the Decline of Tribal Sovereignty

      Nickolasa Jackson
      Native stories are embedded in the United States Constitution, property law, and the nation’s legal and political framework, but education frequently omits these truths. Such erasure perpetuates misunderstanding, invisibility, and hostility toward Native communities, obscuring the reality that the United States was built through the dispossession, coercion, and suffering of Indigenous Peoples. Whitewashing history has allowed the nation to claim moral virtue and industriousness while denying the foundational role of Indigenous Peoples. The Article emphasizes that Native rights, whether land, water, or other treaty-protected entitlements, as well as inherent rights such as tribal sovereignty, are not charitable or discretionary; they exist as legal and political realities. Native Peoples are not martyrs; they are asserting and enforcing agreements made in good faith and exercising powers that have never been relinquished. Misunderstanding or erasing these rights fosters public confusion and hostility, often giving rise to objections or criticisms based on misconceptions about Native peoples’ treaty-based or inherent authorities. This Article proposes that schools throughout the United States teach the full, accurate history of the nation, integrating Native peoples and their sovereignty as central, not peripheral, to the “American” story. By embedding Native histories into mainstream curricula, schools can acknowledge Indigenous contributions, clarify treaty obligations, and foster cultural understanding, self-determination, and tribal sovereignty. Drawing on legal history, treaty law, and critical theories, including TribalCrit, the Article develops strategies for inclusive curricula that present Native stories as essential to United States history. Recognizing these truths is a moral, civic, and legal imperative, necessary to educate students and uphold the rights and sovereignty of Tribal Nations, while promoting a more just and informed understanding of the United States.
    • Article14 January 2026

      Beyond ICWA: Within Family Court Systems, Mixed Indigenous Families Confront Ongoing Jurisdictional Violence

      Nis Wilbur
      Mixed Indigenous families (MIFs) navigating parental custody in the United States can find themselves trapped in a Battleship®-style jurisdictional maze, where tribal, state, and federal authorities collide unpredictably. This legal mess threatens to separate children from their tribal communities, undermines tribal sovereignty, and can force families into years of costly litigation. The problem is rooted in centuries of white supremacist law and policy that systematically dispossess tribes of culture and self-governance: from the Marshall Trilogy to the boarding school era and harmful adoption schemes. Today, legal frameworks like the UCCJEA remain insufficient as they minimize or ignore tribal civil jurisdiction, reinforce the Doctrine of Indigenous Disregard, or fail to protect MIFs from loopholes that allow non-Indians to escape tribal authority. While legal scholarship has identified gaps in state and federal Indian law, it has rarely examined the historical and jurisdictional inequities that uniquely affect MIFs. This Article applies a trilateral federalism lens to illuminate the convoluted interplay between tribal, state, and federal courts in parental custody disputes. Case studies reveal systemic biases, microaggressions, misapplied statutes, and the prioritization of state authority over tribal governance. This Article proposes practical reforms, including codifying UCCJEA § 104, fostering tribal-state comity through Memorandums of Understanding (MOAs) and compacts, and embedding Indigenous law and perspectives into doctrinal courses. By centering MIFs’ rights and tribal sovereignty in legal decision-making, this Article provides a corrective to longstanding jurisdictional inequities and demonstrates that incorporating Indigenous voices is essential for designing fair legal models.
    • Article14 January 2026

      U.N.masking American Exceptionalism: How International Frameworks Can Inform American Indian Policy

      Kaitlin Reese
      “U.N.masking American Exceptionalism: How International Frameworks Can Inform American Policy,” serves primarily to examine and criticize how American case law, such as Johnson v. M’Intosh, has been used in foreign courts to justify the Doctrine of Discovery and how, despite many other courts eventually acknowledging it as a harmful rule of law in meaningful ways, the United States has done no such thing. This Article walks through not only the legal cases both at home and abroad, but also delves into the historical background that led up to Johnson, examines the cases abroad that integrate the Doctrine of Discovery and Johnson, and then walks through the contemporary work that has been done in favor of Indigenous Peoples around the world. This work is highly critical of the apparent lack of a cross-dependent relationship between American and foreign courts in this area of law, in which the American court system has influenced the “legitimacy” of taking from Indigenous groups in other countries. In a modern society, where the harms of colonial pasts have been widely recognized, there are remedial options in which the American government–be that by legislation, diplomacy, or judicial ruling–can at least attempt to return as a global leader in a positive light rather than cling to an antiquated ideal that no longer fits into a post-colonial world.

Most Popular Articles

  • Article
    14 January 2026

    Legal History: The Curious Case of the Disappearing Unceded Lakota Territories

    Sebastian Braun
    This Article discusses whether the Lakota Nation still has title to the unceded territories outlined in the Treaty of 1868. While many accounts focus on the supposed diminishment of the Great Sioux Reservation, the question of the unceded lands has largely been forgotten. It has renewed relevance in the context of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which crosses the lands. From a broader perspective, the case raises questions about how history is understood, constructed, and selected in American Indian Law cases. Most legal cases, especially those concerning treaty rights, are rooted in an interpretation of history; if that history is misinterpreted in court, the decisions can be misinformed. In this instance, the history of the Treaty of 1868 has been consistently misinterpreted by courts for over a century. However, comparing the Treaty text to court decisions in a close reading shows that the Lakota Nation should still have title to the unceded lands.
    Read More
  • Note
    14 January 2026

    Expansion of Federal Benefits to Non-Native Adopted Children

    Anna-Grace Hockensmith
    There is palpable tension between tribal sovereignty and federal administrative control in the distribution of federal benefits to members of Tribal Nations. This tension is felt by adopted non-Native children who might struggle to receive federal benefits even though the tribe of their adopted parent(s) has accepted them as a member. This Note explores how adoption of a non-Native child by a tribal member intersects with tribal membership and whether that membership should be enough for the child to receive federal benefits. The Note discusses four main topics, including: (1) tribal membership, adoption, and current federal enrollment criteria; (2) an analysis of “Indian” identity/classification; (3) cultural and economic considerations and the impacts of non-Native adoption; and (4) state adoption law and proposed deviation of current federal benefit eligibility requirements. By framing benefit eligibility through the lens of inherent tribal sovereignty, this Note contends that the federal government must treat tribal enrollment criteria as authoritative, not advisory, in determining whether an adopted non-Native child receives federal benefits. It sets forth policy recommendations: if Tribal Nations in their sovereign capacity are permitted to choose who can and cannot become members, they should also be permitted to choose which members are eligible to receive federal benefits. Therefore, current benefit eligibility criteria, including blood quantum levels, should give way to tribal choice
    Read More
  • Article
    14 January 2026

    The Tribal Rules of Evidence

    Nicole Morote
    Rules of evidence shape litigation practice across the country. In this sense, they govern the truth as it enters the court. Legal scholarship has yet to study tribal approaches to evidence— an area with tremendous promise for legal practitioners and evidence rulemakers alike. This Article is the first to do so. It analyzes an array of tribal evidence codes across the United States. It reveals three frameworks that describe tribes’ approaches to the Federal Rules. In doing so, it offers a modest contribution to the nascent intersection between Tribal law and evidence studies: crucial insight into tribal systems’ unique needs, policy aims, and perspective on what it means to “do justice.”
    Read More
  • Article
    14 January 2026

    Workers’ Compensation Codes in American Indian* Tribal Nations

    Autumn Siegel
    This Article examines various Tribal Nations’ experiences in developing their own workers’ compensation systems using a comparative law and legal development approach, including direct interviews with a diverse range of tribal members. Tribal Nations’ self-created workers’ compensation codes predominantly rely on local models and expertise to establish and operate their systems. However, Tribal Nations also infuse their own cultural values into their codes, incorporating tribal perspectives and priorities such as valuing traditional medicine and peace-making alternative dispute resolution, providing more generously to volunteers, and incorporating return-to-work programs into their workers’ compensation systems. Some Tribal Nations also find it necessary to include additional provisions that are not present in state codes to ensure their codes’ practical effectiveness. Many Tribal Nations continue to refine these systems, and flexibility as governments allows them to effectively respond to present challenges and strengthen the performance of their workers’ compensation systems in the future
    Read More
  • Comment
    14 January 2026

    Advancing the Rights of Nature: Lessons from Sauk-Suiattle v. City of Seattle

    Harry Katz
    Advocates for the “rights of nature” seek recognition of legal rights for natural elements such as mountains, rivers, and non-human species as a means of protecting the environment. In the United States, Tribal Nations have been at the forefront of this nascent movement. In a 2022 Washington state case, the Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe sued the City of Seattle, alleging that the City’s hydroelectric dams on the Skagit River infringe upon the rights of salmon. Those rights, they claim, include the salmon’s rights to exist, flourish, regenerate, and evolve. The case, known as Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe v. City of Seattle, was eventually dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and thus was never adjudicated on the merits. However, the case offers important lessons that can and should inform future rights of nature actions.
    Read More

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