New Tribal Law Digital Publishing Platform 

One significant initiative of the National Indian Law Library (NILL) is its Access to Tribal Law Project.  The project’s mission is to provide tribal leaders, legal practitioners, and the public with convenient access to current and accurate copies of tribal law, including tribal codes and constitutions, intergovernmental agreements, and tribal court opinions. Public access to these materials enhances the power of tribal courts and strengthens tribal sovereignty. To that end, NILL recently implemented an innovative digital tool that will make it easier for tribes to share their codes and updates.

Digital Publishing Project

Last summer, NILL—along with its project partners Open Law Library, the University of Wisconsin Law Library and the Great Lakes Indigenous Law Center—received grant funding through the Institute of Museum and Library Services for a Digital Publication of Tribal Laws Pilot Project (IMLS grant number LG-246285-OLS-20) . Over the last year, the project has been developing a digital platform to publish tribal laws on library websites. The platform allows libraries to offer an online collection of tribal laws, while tribes maintain full control over the digital copies of their laws. 

The project reached a milestone in April, when NILL published on its website the official laws of Stockbridge Munsee Community, Wisconsin. Much like the days when libraries held official print copies of codes on our shelves, we can now hold an official digital copy of a tribe’s laws on our website while the tribe retains control over the content. You can see the Stockbridge Munsee Community's laws at the NILL website here.

Tribes interested in publishing their laws through the Open Law Platform can contact NILL at TribalLaw@narf.org for more information.

The Importance of Access 

The right to know the laws by which we are governed is a fundamental right. Libraries are keenly aware of the importance of access to legal information, but few are able to pay commercial legal databases’ high fees. Our hope is that this affordable digital publishing technology will allow other libraries—especially university libraries, public libraries, tribal college libraries, and tribal community libraries—to make tribal laws more accessible.

The project’s ultimate goal is to increase public access to the laws of Native nations. Tribal members and leaders will benefit from ready access to their laws, which is essential for good governance and ensuring due process and equal protection. Meanwhile, broader public access to tribal law will facilitate inter-governmental collaboration, encourage economic partnerships, and foster greater understanding of tribal sovereignty and perspectives.

Tribal Law Projects at NILL

The Access to Tribal Law Project and the Tribal Law Gateway are high priorities for the National Indian Law Library.  Our goal is for the Gateway to provide access to accurate tribal law information for all of the 574 federally recognized tribes, regardless of how they choose to make their laws available. You can support this work with a donation today.

NILL Receives IMLS Grant to improve access to Tribal Laws

 
NILL and our partners have been awarded a three year National Leadership Grants for Libraries grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).  We will receive a portion of the $239,087 granted for our Digital Publication of Tribal Laws Pilot Project which endeavors to improve access to tribal laws. Our project, which was one of 38 projects that received an IMLS grant, is featured on the IMLS award announcement: 

The University of Wisconsin Law Library, in partnership with the Stockbridge-Munsee Community Band of Mohican Indians, the UW Law School Great Lakes Indigenous Law Center, the National Indian Law Library, and the Open Law Library, will develop The Digital Publication of Tribal Laws Pilot Project. The project will develop an open law library platform that will empower libraries to improve access to tribal laws published into the public domain and will demonstrate the benefits of the combined platforms for tribes, their members, academia, the legal profession, and the public by creating a fully-functional tribal legal ecosystem.

We’re excited to have received this grant and to work with our partners to continue NILL’s mission of improving access to tribal laws.

New Tribal Law Added to Westlaw

In a recent interview, Thomson West says they are committed to increasing access to tribal law. In the past couple of months, they have added annotated tribal court opinions from the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Court as well as the Mashantucket Pequot Court of Appeals to the Westlaw databases and are also offering the cases in print reporters. The coverage is from Vol. 1 (1992) – present. The database identifier is: MASHPQ-CS and a description of the print copy can be found at: http://west.thomson.com/productdetail/146855/40704092/productdetail.aspx

Thomson West reports that they have contracts with several other tribes to publish their tribal court opinions and codes in both print and on Westlaw. This new content will complement the Oklahoma tribal and CFR court opinions (OKTRIB-CS database) that have been available on Westlaw for many years.

Model Tribal Secured Transactions Act

The conference proceedings for "Sovereignty symposium 2007 : making medicine" (2007) provide a wealth of information on the Model Tribal Secured Transactions Act. The Act itself is provided, along with analysis, sample tribal codes/regulations and sample tribal compacts (or intergovernmental agreements). Much of the information is reprinted with permission from the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws and can be accessed at the NCCUSL's web site.

For more information, go to the National Indian Law Library's online catalog at http://nillcat.narf.org/ Then type "security law" into the Subject Terms field.

New at the Library

New tribal code: The Library recently obtained permission to post The Law and Order Code of the Shoshone and Arapaho Tribes of the Wind River Indian Reservation, Wyoming. The Code is one of more than 100 tribal legal documents available at the Library's web site.


Economic summit materials: The National Congress of American Indians is providing white papers from the National Native American economic policy summit : Phoenix Arizona at its web site. Conference proceedings, which the Library collects, often offer a wealth of research material on current issues of importance to Indian Country.

Tribal law online

Each week the Library looks for new tribal law web sites and tribal laws that have been published on the Internet by the various federally recognized tribal governments.

From Sept. 2006 - Aug. 2007, we have found 23 new tribal web sites, 21 new constitutions posted online and 12 new codes posted online.

Access these laws as well as other tribal laws. All information is available at the National Indian Law Library's Tribal Code & Constitution Directory -- the A-Z List at the Tribal Law Gateway.

Search our site more efficiently

This month we launched a new search engine for our web site, donated to NARF by ISYS Search Software. The search interface is still under development, but still offers great improvements over our previous search engine.

Now you can search parts of the NARF web site in addition to the entire site, with a powerful search engine that lets you select search screens, search terms within proximity of each other, and preview highlighted results. Especially helpful to web site users is the ability to isolate large segments of our site, such as the tribal law collection or the ICWA web guide to conduct research. From any NARF page, click on "Search". http://document.narf.org/

Note that the Library's collection of materials must still be searched using the catalog at http://nillcat.narf.org/

As we continue to customize ISYS to fit our web site, we welcome suggestions for improvement or general comments. Send Emails to dselden@narf.org

Federal Indian Law and Tribal Law Research Guides Updated 9/07

The Library has updated two important Guides to doing Indian law research

• Basic Indian Law Research Tips -- Part I: Federal Indian Law
• Basic Indian Law Research Tips: Part II: Tribal Law

Indian law is a growing area of law, as many of the more than 560 federally recognized tribes and Alaska Native Villages exercise their sovereignty and self-governance, as well as develop their economies. Many western states have significant populations of American Indians, and trust lands cover more than fifty-five million acres in the United States. A sign of the growing importance of Indian law is that the New Mexico, South Dakota and Washington State Bar Associations have decided to add a question on Indian law on their state bar exams. This article, set out in two parts, and originally published in the Colorado Lawyer, attempts to provide some practical tips for the Indian law researcher. Part I focuses on federal Indian law research. Although hundreds of pages could be written on researching federal Indian law, this article focuses on providing basic tips related to common questions received by the National Indian Law Library (“ NILL” ) and the best sources of information to answer those questions.

Part II focuses on tribal law research. Tribal law is law developed by the tribes, which applies within their territories and to their members. Tribal law can be a difficult area of law to research, because few primary and secondary resources are published or distributed to the public. Despite the lack of commercial publication, tribal law resources have become more accessible in the past six years, primarily on the Internet. However, locating the right resources often requires patience and tenacity and the skilled researcher should be aware of who to contact for assistance.

New Tribal Law Materials

This week the Library received permission to post the Constitution and Waganakising Odawa Tribal Code of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians. Both documents can be found at our online tribal laws web page. From the same web page you can also access an updated copy of the Swinomish Tribal Code. And at the bottom of the web page is a link to Gaming Ordinances of Tribes, posted at the web site of the National Indian Gaming Commission.

Briefing Paper on Methamphetamines Discusses Tribal Solutions

A briefing paper from the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) discusses tribal initiatives to combat the problem of methamphetamine trafficking and use in tribal communities. Published at NCAI's web site, the paper discusses new anti-meth criminal codes and cooperative agreements between tribes and nearby cities, among other solutions. Contact information for tribal leaders, whose initiatives are discussed, is provided. Titled "Methamphetamines in Indian Country: an American Problem Uniquely Affecting Indian Country," the briefing paper was published in November 30, 2006 and is at NCAI's web site. It was also reprinted in the December 2006 issue of Native American Law Digest.

Tribal Law Gateway

The library improves access to hard-to-find tribal law documents through its improved Tribal Law Gateway: The National Indian Law Library's Tribal Law Gateway has a new look. Re-designed -- as an improved portal to the laws of the federally-recognized tribes, Alaska Native villages, and pueblos in the United States -- this area of our web site now brings together all of our research tips and tools in one place. Access has been improved to the hundreds of copies of codes, constitutions and other tribal law documents held by the library and found elsewhere.

From one web page, library researchers can access our:

• research tips and guides,
• A-Z directory for finding tribal laws and web sites,
• print and online collections,
• and more.

For tribal leaders, we have developed an informational web page about the library's efforts to collect tribal codes, constitutions, and compacts.

To use the Tribal Law Gateway today, go to http://www.narf.org/nill/triballaw/index.htm, or click on "Tribal Law Gateway" from our home page.