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Showing compassion is the best way to demonstrate Native love, according to Raelyn Rodriguez who lives on the Rincon Indian Reservation in Southern California. Being compassionate can be as simple an act as seeing someone who is struggling and “just saying nice things and empowering them with your words.” Violence against women is not a part of traditional Native culture...

In the face of unresponsive domestic legal and political systems, the Indian Law Resource Center partnered with Native women’s organizations and Indian nations on a national strategy – a strategy reframing the issue of violence against Native women as a human rights issue, not just a domestic or law enforcement issue. By combining domestic and international advocacy and turning to...

A Report on Tribal Capacity for Enhanced Sentencing and Restored Criminal Jurisdiction Native women and girls are not safe. Violence against them has reached epidemic levels in Indian country and Alaska Native villages ─ rates 2½ times higher than violence against any other group of women in the United States. One in three Native women will be raped in her...

International law says that indigenous communities have the right to control and protect their traditional lands and territories; they also have the right to live free of violence and injustice. These rights are being ignored by the Guatemala government. For more than 40 years, Agua Caliente leaders, from a small Maya Q’eqchi’ community in El Estor, have fought attempts by...

President Barack Obama set a new precedent for recognizing indigenous rights when he signed the Appropriations Act of 2014. The Act includes language to help ensure that Maya Achi communities in Guatemala will finally be compensated for the damage and injustices caused by the construction of the Chixoy Dam. Thirty-three communities were stripped of their lands, homes, and crops to...

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), along with treaties, instruments, and decisions of international law, recognizes that indigenous peoples have the right to give "free, prior, and informed consent" to legislation and development affecting their lands, natural resources, and other interests, and to receive remedies for losses of property taken without such consent. With approximately...

The United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs conducted an oversight hearing on Feb. 12, 2014, on the recently released Indian Law and Order Commission (ILOC) report, “A Roadmap for Making Native America Safer.” The report calls for tribes to exercise full authority over non-Indians and for Alaska tribes to exercise jurisdiction over their own lands. In total, the report...

Dear Friends, We have reviewed the President of the General Assembly’s February 25th decision concerning consultations with indigenous representatives on the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples. The decision is very poor and inconsistent with the directive provided to the PGA by the UN General Assembly in its resolution A/RES/66/296 (attached). However, it is not so bad that it warrants cancellation...