This course will survey the broad currents in federal Indian Law. We will confront the basic legal and policy questions posed by this body of law. It is a highly technical legal field that is additionally complicated by questions of the history of colonialism, nation building and philosophy. In order to address the underlying normative questions it will be necessary to master the basics of the law regulating Indians and Indian Tribes. We will use the last part of the semester to address some comparative law questions. We will compare the distinctly American approach to these issues with those approaches taken by other Western Hemispheric nations and the tribes themselves.
Torres, Gerald