The Rule of Law, Lawyers, and Indigenous Rights

Indigenous nations and their citizens have a unique relationship with the United States and its legal system. From having their rights adjudicated by the “Courts of the conqueror,” to the overarching plenary power exercised by the U.S. Congress, to the negotiation of treaties with a president often deemed the “great white father,” the American rule of law and role of lawyers in upholding it have significantly and disparately impacted Indigenous sovereignty and individual rights. A modern renaissance of that sovereignty and the expanding study and understanding of the role it has played in shaping the nation’s structures of power is now beginning to reshape how the law and lawyers should view Indigenous rights in relation to law, justice, and the legal profession. This panel centers the rights of Indigenous nations and their citizens to consider what the American rule of law has meant and how the assertion of Indigenous sovereignty is fundamentally changing those historical (mis-)conceptions.