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On June 13, 2016, the United States Supreme Court decided United States v. Bryant, 579 U.S. __ (2016), holding that uncounseled tribal court convictions that complied with the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 were valid as entered and could be used as predicate offenses in federal prosecutions under 18 U.S.C. § 117(a) without violating the Sixth Amendment. In an...

June 23, 2016 |The United States Supreme Court today released its decision in favor of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians in a 4-4 tie. The decision in Dollar General Corporation v. Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians affirms the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision, which upheld the Mississippi Band of Choctaw tribal courts’ civil jurisdiction. The decision affirms that...

June 29, 2016 │ By Simon Gertler, 2016 Summer Sidley Fellow On Tuesday, June 28, 2016, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary held a hearing to receive testimony from the Department of Justice and Government Accountability Office on implementation of the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015 one year after its enactment. The Statute The Act, which became...

On June 27, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in Voisine et al. v. United States, 579 U.S. __ (2016), affirming that federal law (18 U.S.C. §922(g)(9)) prohibits gun ownership by individuals who have been convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor, regardless of whether the crime was committed with knowing, intentional, or reckless intent. A conviction in federal...

July 11, 2016 | Geneva, Switzerland This week Center attorney, Karla General, is taking part in meetings of the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Expert Mechanism will meet this week in Geneva from July 11-15, 2016, for its ninth annual meeting since its establishment in 2007. The Mechanism provides thematic advice in the form...

Originally published on Rewire by Nicole Knight Shine - June 24, 2016 | The case, Dollar General v. Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, hinged on whether the tribe had the authority to resolve civil lawsuits involving non-members—in this case, a $20 billion company—on Native lands. A U.S. Supreme Court tie on Thursday represented a win for tribal court authority in...

The Center led a workshop on the United Nations system and multilateral development banks for the traditional and ancestral authorities of the Mayan Nation, during the “Second Gathering of Ancestral Knowledge for the Defense of Life, Mother Earth, and Her Natural Elements,” held in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, on August 26-28, 2016. Multilateral development banks play a key role in financing large-scale...

On August 4th, 2016, the World Bank’s board of directors approved a new Environmental and Social Framework, modernizing a decades old set of policies aimed at preventing Bank-funded development projects from harming the environment and people. Standard 7 on Indigenous Peoples is the policy that sets up standards that borrowing countries are expected to follow to protect indigenous rights.“We wanted...

Terri Henry, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Secretary of State and chairwoman of the Indian Law Resource Center board of directors, is one of 16 experts tapped to serve on the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. She will begin her three-year term on January 1, 2017. “Terri is an excellent choice to serve in this important role,”...

By Armstrong Wiggins The adoption of the American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the Organization of American States (OAS) has been a lengthy process – nearly 30 years in the making. It is often the case that good ideas become much stronger when we give them the time they need to take root, and that was certainly...