treaty rights
Negotiated legal protections
Treaty rights are legal entitlements held by Indigenous peoples under agreements with colonial or national governments.
These typically include rights to hunt, fish, gather, and access traditional lands, as well as rights to self-governance, education, and healthcare.
In the U.S. and Canada, treaty rights are constitutionally protected and remain legally enforceable even when the treaties are centuries old: The tribe asserted its treaty rights to fish in ancestral waters.
Disputes over treaty rights often center on whether governments have honored their obligations.
- land claimsAssertions of property ownership
- sovereigntySupreme independent authority
- tribal nationsSelf-governing native communities
- self-determinationControl over one's fate
- jurisdictionLegal authority's scope
historical treaties · broken promises · federal recognition · water access · ratification · ancestral lands · hunting grounds · land back · reparations · oral traditions · pipe ceremony · medicine wheel · colonial history · fiduciary duty · sacred sites · federal · conservation zones · cession
- treatiestreaties, peace treaties, alliances, diplomatic pacts, bilateral agreements
- indigenous rightsnative sovereignty, indigenous sovereignty, traditional territories, land title, native lands
- Tribal Rightstribal governance, tribal sovereignty, tribal membership, tribal courts, tribal police
treaty rightsstatutory rights
Protections codified in legislation
common law rights · delegated authority · natural rights · inherent rights · constitutional rights
treaty rightstreaty violations
Failures to honor accords
broken treaties · dispossession · land theft · assimilation policies · wardship