We will never sell our rainforest to the oil companies. Today, the courts recognized that the Waorani people, and all indigenous peoples have rights over our territories that must be respected. This is a legal precedent for indigenous rights. “This is a huge step forward in the battle to ensure indigenous people’s rights over their lands are respected. Guaranteeing indigenous peoples’ rights to …
A Federal judge dismissed the Nooksack Tribe’s lawsuit against the federal government. Like others before him, the judge ruled he couldn’t recognize the tribal council that filed the suit because it isn’t legitimate. The Bellingham Herald reports this is all related to the Nooksack’s attempt kick nearly 300 people out of the tribe.
The Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe has opened yet another front against the state of South Dakota in its bid to exert more independence over state government. The tribe filed a lawsuit against the state in federal court challenging the state’s interpretation that contractors working on an expansion of the Royal River Casino are required to pay contractors excise tax to the state. The lawsuit alleges that the state’s imposition of the tax “subjects the tribe to an intrusion into tribal sovereignty within its reservation.” The lawsuit also argues that the state is …
Broken treaties aren’t exactly breaking news for Oklahoma’s native people. So why is the Cherokee Nation launching a new legal battle now? There are about 200 years worth of reasons and an unknown sum of money tribal leaders say the feds owe them.
The Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes have filed new lawsuits in yet another legal effort to stop a 1,172-mile, 570,000 barrel-per-day crude oil pipeline that skirts the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota within a half mile. Meanwhile, the pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners began drilling when the Army Corps of Engineers granted them an easement needed for construction …
The village of Supai is located in Havasu Canyon, a side canyon of Grand Canyon, and its residents depend on spring-fed Havasu Creek for their livelihood. The tribe filed a lawsuit in federal court in early December seeking to stop groundwater pumping it says threatens seeps and springs on its reservation. Havasu Falls is one of four major waterfalls along Havasu Creek on the Havasupai Indian …
Siding with the Seminole Tribe over the state of Florida, federal Judge Robert Hinkle on Wednesday ruled that the tribe can continue to offer blackjack and other banked card games for the next 14 years. The ruling means blackjack until at least 2030 at Seminole-owned casinos and means less money for state coffers at a time when state budgets over the next few years are expected to be tight. The …
A California Indian tribe may be immune from a Family and Medical Leave Act lawsuit by a fired employee even though it acted to move the lawsuit to federal court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled (Bodi v. Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, 2016 BL 255421, 9th Cir., No. 14-16121, 8/8/16 ). With the decision, two federal appeals courts now have …