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There is power in the process of engaging legal systems to protect, recognize, and/or uphold Indigenous rights and responsibilities. This conversation with Professor Natsu Taylor Saito, hosted by Professor Beth Rose Middleton Manning and the Aoki Center, will consider three legal systems - Indigenous legal systems, Federal Indian Law, and International law focused on Indigenous Human Rights—centering examples of engaging and navigating these systems to reach empowering outcomes, even in the face of duress and resistance. While the US has not recognized international decisions in favor of Indigenous rights, the process of engagement and the outcomes still have powerful ramifications for Indigenous peoples, epistemologies, and homelands.
Professor Natsu Taylor Saito teaches public international law and international human rights; seminars in race and the law, federal Indian law, and indigenous rights; and professional responsibility. She has served as advisor to the Asian American Law Student Association, the Latinx and Caribbean Law Student Association, the Immigration Law Society, and the student chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. Saito’s scholarship focuses on the legal history of race in the United States, the plenary power doctrine as applied to immigrants, American Indians, and U.S. territorial possessions, and the human rights implications of U.S. governmental policies, particularly with regard to the suppression of political dissent. She is writing a book on settler colonialism and race in America.
Dr. Beth Rose Middleton Manning (Afro-Caribbean, Eastern European) is a Professor of Native American Studies at UC Davis. Beth Rose’s research centers on Native environmental policy and Native activism for site protection using conservation tools. Her broader research interests include environmental and climate justice, fire policy, intergenerational trauma and healing, Native land stewardship, rural environmental justice, Indigenous analysis of climate change, Afro-indigeneity, and qualitative GIS. Beth Rose received her BA in Nature and Culture from UC Davis, and her Ph.D. in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management from UC Berkeley. Her first book, Trust in the Land: New Directions in Tribal Conservation (University of Arizona Press 2011), focuses on Native applications of conservation easements, with an emphasis on conservation partnerships led by California Native Nations.
Please contact Jesus Barraza with any questions.