Aboriginal Rights in Alaska

This paper was originally presented at Session A.1, "The Aborigine in comparative law," at the 12th Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law, Sydney, Australia, August 1986. The paper as originally presented can be found at http://hdl.handle.net/11122/9784.This paper describes the current state of aboriginal rights in Alaska and the impact of federal and state laws and policies on Alaska Native political and legal rights, tribal status, self-determination, and access to tribal lands. Topics covered include the legal determination of Alaska Native identity, the legal status of Alaska Native groups, Alaska Native land rights, sovereignty and self-government, subsistence, recognition of family and kinship structures, the criminal justice system in rural Alaska, customary versus formal legal process, and human rights and equality before the law.Factual Background / Legal Identity and Membership / Legal Status of Native Groups / Land Rights/Self-Government/Use of Natural Resources (Local or Regional Governments; Control of or Participation in Decisions Concerning Natural Resources) / Recognition of Family/Kinship Structures (Experience under the Indian Child Welfare Act 1978; Impact on Customary Law) / Criminal Justice and Procedure: Impact of the Criminal Justice System (Relationship between Law Enforcement and Self-Government; Procedure and Customary Conflicts) / Special Legal Institutions (Local Methods of Dispute Resolution; Distribution of Funds, Benefits and Services, and Political Representation) / Human Rights and Equality Before the Law / Notes / Bibliograph

Smooth the Dying Pillow: Alaska Natives and Their Destruction [chapter]

This paper was originally presented in Symposium III, "Group Rights at the Close of the Twentieth Century: Strategies for Assisting the Fourth World; Session 3, Evaluating Strategies for Change" at the 12th International Congress, Commission on Folk Law and Legal Pluralism, International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, Zagreb, Yugoslavia, Jul 1988. The paper as originally presented can be found at http://hdl.handle.net/11122/7350.The policy for Native self-determination in Alaska developed by the Congress and the state has sought to replace a tribal model of governance with a body of legislation which confirms land rights without the direct political involvement of Alaska Native villages. However, the author argues, the absence of tribes as formal political structures has contributed to a loss of self-determination among Alaska Natives and to serious negative effects on Native village life.The Pre-Land Claims Agenda: 1955-1965 / The Land Claims Era: 1967-72 / 1988 — A Watershed / Notes / Bibliograph

The Interrelationship between Alaska State Law and the Social Systems of Modern Eskimo Villages in Alaska: History, Present and Future Considerations

Yup'ik and Inupiat villages in Alaska (the territory and the state) experienced a process of legal socialization that was strongly influenced by serious constraints in the allocation of resources. These constraints resulted in legal socialization into what was in essence a second legal state system and provided an opportunity for cultural autonomy by Eskimo villages, even though this de facto situation did not recognize these groups as sovereign tribes. The actual implementation of a single full-blown legal system in village Alaska in the mid-1970s has resulted in a loss of control and serious efforts by Alaska villages to reinstitute village law ways as tribal legal process.Eskimo Villages in Alaska - Communities of Resilience and Change / Who are the Eskimos? / The Early Period / Western Legal Socialization: Early Agents of Change / Late Territorial and Early State Period / Critical Factors in the Oil Boom and Land Claims Era and Their Bearing Upon the Relationship Between Social Structure and Law / The Process of Legal Change During the Claims Settlement Decade / The Local Option Law and its Rationale / Juvenile Matters / Tribal Governments - The Next Step? / Bibliograph

Smooth the Dying Pillow: Alaska Natives and Their Destruction [original paper]

A slightly revised version of this paper was published as: Conn, Stephen. (1990). "Smooth the Dying Pillow: Alaska Natives and Their Destruction." Law & Anthropology: Internationales Jahrbuch für Rechtsanthropologie [International Yearbook for Legal Anthropology] 5: 167–183. Special issue on "Group Rights: Strategies for Assisting the Fourth World." Vienna, Austria: VWGO-Verlag. (http://hdl.handle.net/11122/9786).The policy for Native self-determination in Alaska developed by the Congress and the state has sought to replace a tribal model of governance with a body of legislation which confirms land rights without the direct political involvement of Alaska Native villages. However, the author argues, the absence of tribes as formal political structures has contributed to a loss of self-determination among Alaska Natives and to serious negative effects on Native village life.[Introduction] / The Pre-Land Claims Agenda: 1955–1965 / The Land Claims Era: 1967–1972 / 1988 — A Watershed / Footnotes / Bibliograph

Alaskan Bush Justice: Legal Centralism Confronts Social Science Research and Village Alaska [chapter]

This paper was revised and shortened for inclusion in the volume "People’s Law and State Law: The Bellagio Papers", which serves as the “proceedings” volume for the first conference of the Commission on Folk Law and Legal Pluralism of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences held at Bellagio, Lake Como, Italy, September 1981. The paper as originally presented in 1981 can be found at http://hdl.handle.net/11122/9750.This paper traces the history of the bush justice system in rural Alaska, describes the relationship between traditional Alaska Native dispute resolution mechanisms and the state criminal justice system, and analyzes bush justice research between 1970 and 1981 and its effects on state agency policies and changes in the rural justice system. Innovations by researchers were well-received by villagers and field-level professionals, but not by agency policymakers. Hence, most reforms made in the 1970s had vanished by the early 1980s. The author concludes that further reforms will be ineffective unless Alaska Natives are drawn into the decisionmaking process as co-equal players negotiating on legal process from positions of power.The environment for research / What is the bush justice system in Alaska? / The early years of the relationship / The later years / Impact on council justice in the 1970s / Village efforts / Professional perspectives / Magistrates as guardians of due process / The researchers' perspective / The problem board experiment / The court experiment with problem boards / Paralegals / Projects accomplished and their bureaucratic response / The present / Notes / References / APPENDICES [ORIGINAL] / Appendix 1. Public Officials Assessments of Quality of Justice and Selected Public Services [ca. 1978] / Appendix 2. Comparison of Alaska Villages, Alaska Statewide, and United States Crime Rates [1977] / Appendix 3. Statewide Juvenile Arrest Rated per 100,000 Individuals [1978] / APPENDICES (ACCESSIBLE

Telling Them What They Want to Hear: Involvement with the Indigenous Populations as a Lawyer-Legal Anthropologist in Alaska and Canada

For some purposes — most notably when the legal question of tribal sovereignty is pursued — Alaska has held firm to the principle that all Alaskans are subject to a single law and that village tribes lack legal authority. Yet in practice the history of Alaska bush justice has been to employ informal, extralegal approaches until formal law could muster sufficient resources to intervene and displace informal law.This paper describes the tension between official and unofficial approaches to solving problems such as alcohol, gasoline sniffing, and substance abuse and the attendant social disorder in rural Alaska villages where the structures of formal law and law enforcement are largely absent, and explores the role lawyers can play to improve the legal system within villages

Punishment in Pre-Colonial Indigenous Societies in North America [original paper]

A revised version of this paper was published in the "proceedings" volume for this conference: Conn, Stephen. (1991). "Punishment in Pre-Colonial Indigenous Societies in North America." La peine, Quatrième partie. Mondes non européens [Punishment – Fourth Part. Non-European worlds], pp. 97–107. Recueils de la Société Jean Bodin pour l'histoire comparative des institutions [Transactions of the Jean Bodin Society for Comparative Institutional History] #58. Brussels: De Boeck Université. (http://hdl.handle.net/11122/9753).Using northern Athabascan villages as examples, the author discusses how punishment in indigenous societies was traditionally interwoven with other societal functions. The influence of alcohol and the western legal process changed post-colonial societies and their methods of punishment because punishment decisions in indigenous societies were traditionally arrived at through group deliberation, whereas the western legal system works in a hierarchical fashion. The author concludes that imposition of western-style decision-making disrupted tradtional law ways in post-colonial society

The Aborigine in Comparative Law: Subnational Report on Alaska Natives

A slightly revised version of this paper was published as: Conn, Stephen. (1987). "Aboriginal Rights in Alaska." Law & Anthropology: Internationales Jahrbuch für Rechtsanthropologie [International Yearbook for Legal Anthropology] 2: 73–91. Special issue on "The Aborigine in Comparative Law." Vienna, Austria: VWGO-Verlag. (http://hdl.handle.net/11122/9785).This paper describes the current state of aboriginal rights in Alaska and the impact of federal and state laws and policies on Alaska Native political and legal rights, tribal status, self-determination, and access to tribal lands. Topics covered include the legal determination of Alaska Native identity, the legal status of Alaska Native groups, Alaska Native land rights, sovereignty and self-government, subsistence, recognition of family and kinship structures, the criminal justice system in rural Alaska, customary versus formal legal process, and human rights and equality before the law.1. Factual Background / 2. Legal Identity and Membership / 3. Legal Status of Native Groups / 4. Land Rights/Self-Government/Use of Natural Resources (B. Local or Regional Governments; C. Control of or Participation in Decisions Concerning Natural Resources) / 5. Recognition of Family/Kinship Structures (Impact on customary law) / 6. Criminal Justice and Procedure: Impact of the Criminal Justice System (Procedure and Customary Conflicts) / 7. Special Legal Institutions (A. Local Methods of Dispute Resolution; B. and C. Distribution of Funds, Benefits and Services, and Political Representation — Other Institutions) / 8. Human Rights and Equality Before the Law Foototes / Bibliograph

Stock, Corporations, and Native Land Claims Settlement: One of a Series of Articles on the Native Land Claims

This article focuses on the role of village and regional corporations as established under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) of 1972. The booklet presents a simulated case study and open-ended class discussion questions relative to the use, purpose, and development of corporations, how corporations are managed and governed, and provisions of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act which led to changes in Alaska law with regard to Alaska Native shares in ANCSA corporations. The article is one of a series by different authors designed to stimulate reading and discussion at an advanced secondary or adult level.Alaska Department of EducationWhat are Corporations? / How Your Money and Land Will Be Used / Why Corporations? / Money to Spend and Money to Invest / Investment - Familiar Ways / Sole Proprietorship / Partnership / Corporations Protect People / Working for the Corporations / The Building Blocks of a Corporation / Differences Between Co-operatives and Corporations / Three Students Discuss a Corporation / Lessons Ronald, Jim, and Mark Learned / A Legal Contract / Directors / Compare the Old Days With the Future / Review of Corporations / Alaska Law and Native Claims Stock / Class Discussion

Book Review of Village Journey by Thomas R. Berger

This review is as submitted to the Tundra Times. A revised version of the review, as edited by Tundra Times editorial staff, was published as "Doctrinal Overload Flaws Berger's 'Village Journey'" by Stephen Conn, Tundra Times, 23 Sep 1985, pp. 7, 11–12.This article reviews Village Journey: The Report of the Alaska Native Review Commission by Thomas R. Berger (New York: Hill and Wang, 1985). The Alaska Native Review Commission, headed by former Canadian parliamentarian and justice Thomas Berger, initiated an inquiry into the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) in 1984, visiting 62 villages and hearing 1600 residents to determine ANCSA's impact on Alaska Native lands and communities. Berger found that ANCSA had placed Native land at risk, endangering not only its title but the rights of Alaska Natives to subsist upon it.Book review / Appendix: Letter to Justice Thomas Berger, October 28, 198