Courses

College of Law

Advanced Water Law & Policy: Native Waters Seminar

Course Number: 6990
Professor: Jason Robison
Credit Hours & Type of Credit: 3
Semester Offered: Varies
Required: No
Prerequisites: Law students must have completed their first year of law school.
Recommended Courses: Water Law & Policy, Federal Indian Law

Course Overview: Advanced Water Law & Policy is a paper-based seminar that enables law and non-law graduate students to complete research projects on self-selected topics in the fields of domestic, international, and comparative water law and policy. The Native Waters version of this seminar focuses on Native nations and their legal and political relations over water with their co-sovereigns, the United States and the states, within the U.S. portion of North America. Beginning with the foundational concepts of tribal sovereignty and the federal-tribal trust relationship, the seminar turns from this core material to the Winters doctrine, surveying not only the Winters decision itself, but also a host of subsequent jurisprudence and positive law addressing tribal water rights (reserved rights), such as adjudicatory jurisdiction, quantification methods, treatment of groundwater, allotment and derivative individual water rights, and federal conflicts of interest and breach of trust actions. Not to be overlooked, the primary instruments for resolving tribal water rights claims in modern times, negotiated settlements, will also be discussed. Finally, as a complement to the preceding material, the seminar will draw to a close with an examination of contemporary tribal water management, which will include a field trip to the Wind River Reservation. Because of its research- and writing-intensive format, this seminar is an excellent option for satisfying the College of Law’s Advanced Writing Requirement.

Course Materials: No textbook. All reading materials will be posted on the course website.
Course Format: Seminar-style class discussions and writing workshops, and field trip.
Written Assignments: Research paper
Type of Exam: None
Basis for Grading Student Performance: Research paper, short quiz, and class participation.
Other Comments: None