ABSTRACT
The legal and political status of Indigenous Nations across the world has significant variation. However, the trajectory of international law, and many domestic national laws, increasingly recognizes the self-determining authority of Indigenous communities. This recognition can—and should—impact the role Indigenous Nations can play in identifying problems, developing remedies, and executing solutions. This chapter focuses on water diplomacy in the context of the nearly six hundred Tribal Nations existing within the political boundaries of the United States and the myriad Indigenous communities across the world. The benefits of employing principles of water diplomacy in this context are especially apparent given the legal framework in which U.S.-based Tribal Nations exist as well as the multifaceted challenges of sharing water resources with Indigenous Nations. Despite this chapter’s focus on the legal circumstances of United States law, significant commonalities among Indigenous Nations all over the globe render the lessons from this chapter applicable in any circumstance. Regardless of locale, water diplomacy is the better approach for solving complex water problems involving Indigenous communities. While many countries rely upon early U.S. legal precedent, like Johnson v. McIntosh (1823), Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), and Worcester v. Georgia (1832), in formulating laws relating to Indigenous Nations, whether a particular nation’s laws or judicial system incorporates those legal concepts or not, it remains true that the broad outlines of the legal and historical conflict between Indigenous Nations and Settler Nations are similar. Colonialism is a common thread, and the concept of water diplomacy with Indigenous Nations functions to deviate from that historical path.
