Transcripts For CSPAN2 In The Light Of Justice 20131104

So that every hospital everywhere can do as well as possible and theres very little of it being done. I go back to a surgeon named William Halsted who is century ago tackled a number of different problems with the view of asking what we make it possible for any surgeon anywhere to do as well as possible . So he was the one who introduced the gloves in the operating rooms of took the likelihood out of the ability to people to wash their hands. He was the first to create a Successful Operation for breast cancer. One that was straightforward enough that every surgeon could learn to do it. And we dont quite think that way. And one of the things i hope to have as a message is that when obstetrics had been we deliver 4 million children in this country. How do we make sure that everywhere in the country it can be done as safely as possible . People dont have doubts going to their Community Hospital to have their babies because part of the systems where the chances for a debt for another is one in 20,000 where it used to be the most common killer of women in the mid part of a letter century. If you have to have assembled gallbladder operation or you have a child with a complication of a long problem, he will suddenly asked which plays are you going . You have to go here. And that is a firm that we havent lifted, but we can. And i think there are interesting ways to know how to read thank you, everybody. In january, 1963, they had done something they didnt do before to the the the state and they fought and as a result, five american were shot down, three americans were killed. Kennedy sees this on the front page and says whats going on here . I thought we were winning this war. Over the course of the next several months in fact in december and janaria into february he was going to hear varying reports from white house officials, state Department Officials and military officials giving the contradictory evidence about the state of the military campaign in south viet nam. 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books continues now on cspan2. Walter echohawk talks about the u. S. Governments adoption of the u. N. Declaration of the rights of Indigenous Peoples and discusses what needs to be done to implement it and create a more just society for native americans. This is about an hour 15. [applause] wow. [laughter] i have to thank you, professor. I couldnt ask for a more wonderful than and generous, kind introduction. I paid her to say all of that. [laughter] but i am very pleased to be here at asus sandra day oconnors college of law and appreciate the opportunity to speak. And i especially want to thank greg hill the executive director of the indian legal program, darlene and of course Patty Ferguson for inviting me to be here. I am just so pleased and glad and honored to once again be here at the college and to be part of this lecture series. I have to say at the outset that the program is certainly well known nationally. As a National Leader in education and the field of federal indian law. Over the years i have very much valued my opportunity to work with the esteemed professor here in various matters. The Professor Bob clinton and over year bob miller, professor miller, of course professor Kevin Goldberg currently at the smithsonians, Patti Ferguson bonnie as well as carl and i just have to commend the school for such an allstar lineup of indian law professors, part of the faculty of his meeting ranking law school and im so glad to be here. Ive been inspired by the scholarship, the innovation and the leadership provided by this program here at the university. Therefore, i personally feel its very fitting to present my First Law School book collector in support of my new book in the light of justice here at this small school. This book is fresh off the press released last month in all august and we have done a domestic book launching the event in june and to mexico as well as an International Book launching the event in feg in the south pacific. I am now on a National Book lecture tour in support of this book beginning right here in the great hall as it should be. But this book is about a brand new Legal Framework for defining native american rights in the United States. It examines the landmark u. N. Declaration of the rights of Indigenous Peoples, which is an International Instrument that creates a comprehensive human rights freemarket, a comprehensive human rights framework for indigenous rights, of Indigenous Peoples worldwide. This declaration was approved by the end you then in the year 2007 as the professor said. And was endorsed by the United States in the year 2010. So today there is 150 nations around the world that have endorsed the demon declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples. Its the new order of the day it seems to me. And so my book basically examines the stevan declaration, the nature and its contents, and then it goes on to compare these u. N. Human rights standards with existing u. S. Law and policy and to see how well our walls and policies here in the u. S. Stack up against these u. N. Standards. And then finally, this book urges our nation to undertake a social and Legal Movement to implement these u. N. Standards into our existing policies so that all of our laws and policies comply with more comport with every one of these human standards. And i have to say at the outset that this book i am very indebted to a law professor who is a professor of law at the university of Arizona College of law for writing the foreword to this book. As you know, this brilliant indigenous lawyer is currently serving as the u. N. Special rubber on the rights of Indigenous Peoples at the United Nations and in that capacity, the professor is who the u. N. Official of the primarily responsible for interpreting this u. N. Declaration and assisting nations around the world in implementing it. So i was and all of him when he agreed to write the foreword i knew that i had to do a good job. But what i would like to do in the book lecture this evening is to cover basically three areas with you. First i would like to look at y or explain why i wrote this book about the u. N. Declaration. Second, i would like to describe this u. N. Declaration for you. Who has read this declaration . Raise your hand. By golly that is a pretty substantial fraction. But i want to briefly describe this a declaration, its principal features and the human rights framework that it creates for Indigenous Peoples not only around the world but here in the u. S. And then third, i would like to discuss some of the issues that are addressed in this book, some of the findings that i made, some of the conclusions that i need from my comparative legal analysis, and especially i want to talk about the need to implement these u. N. Standards and our own country here into our u. S. Law and social policy and identify some of the implementation challenges that lie ahead for this generation. And i think after i cover these areas we will have time as mentioned for questions and answers and then i will be available to sign a few bucks after we are done here thanks to the campus bookstore. Before i begin though, i just want to sort of lay out the general premise of the book, and that is that this is truly a historic time for federal indian law and policy. And of course federal indian law is the current Legal Framework share in the u. S. For defining the need for american rights that is our bundle of legal rights as native people and political rights, our property rights, our cultural rights and civil rights as native americans. Its defined by principles of federal indian law and we know very clearly that federal indian law its been our experience during the modern era of the federal indian law that this Legal Framework has basically two sides. On one side has very protective features that are protected of native american rights. I think it stems from more rises from the tribal sovereignty, inherent sovereignty doctrine and the related protectorate principles. Within these protective features of federal indian law in the last two generations we have literally witnessed the rise of the modern indian nations that we can see now around the country. And within the framework we have also witnessed a very cultural renaissance as we look around the country. But on the other side of the federal indian law, we have a dark side of the federal indian law that was implanted by the Supreme Court in the 19th century that has a very distinct antiindigenous function. This arises from a number of nefarious legal doctrines, numerous factions and notions of racism that were built in to federal indian law many decades ago and the dark side of the federal indian wall holds us back. It makes us vulnerable. It keeps house poor. But today we could clearly see the two Legal Frameworks now for defining and of american rights. One is our old framework of the federal indian law with its in good and bad sides to it. Second come out on the horizon, we can see this coming our way the brand new framework, a human rights framework that comes to us from modern International Human rights law as it is laid out in this u. N. Declaration and the fisa framework is radically different from our own intent it is based upon the human rights principle and if we look at our old framework we can see that it is the raft of the human rights principle. In federal indian law and in the foundational cases of the federal indian law, the Supreme Court has expressly this to it looking at abstract principles of justice or morality when defining the native american rights and this has produced a body of law that is essentially an morrill, that contains an amazing prevalence of unjust cases. We can look at the four corners of this jurisprudence and you cant find any judicial discourse about human rights, no human rights precepts and no human rights principles. So today, we stand at a crossroads it seems to me between the two Legal Frameworks , and the book asserts that our challenge of this generation is to basically save the very best from our old framework and merge it with a new human rights remark to synthesize the two frameworks into a seamless, strengthened and more just body of law for the 21st century. And i believe that that is the challenge for the current generation. And it may take the work of a generation to do that. Let me turn to the areas that i wanted to cover here. Why did i write this book . In thinking about the reasons i was motivated basically by three reasons. First is the need to strengthen the federal indian law. We have witnessed a gradual weakening of the federal indian law since 1986. Court observers tell us that we have Indian Tribes that lost over 80 of their cases before the u. S. Supreme court. That high court is on a very clear and judicial trend towards trimming back our native rights of the last generation. That problem in all is very frightening, and its compounded it seems to me by the dark side of the indian law that ive mentioned earlier. We have some of our leading legal scholars have studied this dark side of the framework, have looked at the nefarious roots of some of these legal doctrines back to medieval europe, folks like Professor Robert williams of the university of arizona schools law, a Professor Bob miller looking at the discovery and in my book here looking at the best and worst cases of the federal indian law. The scholarship has really identified nefarious legal doctrines and internal tensions within the body of all that rendered them vulnerable today. The existence of this unjust side of the federal indian wall isnt questioned at any serious point in its history and i think the litigators of the past two generations have basically lived with this body of law. We tried to emphasize the protective features and coax the courts into providing the more protective features of the framework to degette and living with the dark side of it. We never amounted an effort to overturn the dark side of the law. The dred scott cases that are still seen today in johnson of the macintosh, but we lived with that. And so, this trend towards gradually weakening the federal indian wall has had many troubled legal scholars and the tribal leaders to asked is the federal indian wall of dead . Have we stalled out on the very doorsteps of the true Self Determination as it is defined by the modern International Human rights law . And it may be that our indian nations have come as far as they can under this existing Legal Framework. I think there is an axiom that a race of people can only advanced so far under an unjust legal regime. To advance further, they have to attack that illegal regime and reform it to go further in their aspirations. So these problems and the law have deeply troubled me and i believe many of my colleagues as well. And if this led me to believe the indian law is in deep trouble today. That means a lifeline and i feel like the u. N. U. S. Declaration may be that lifeline. So i felt it was worthwhile to study this declaration. Second, the second reason that motivated me to write this book is if you look around the Indian Country, our tribal communities will see that there are numerous hard to solve social ills in our tribal communities to be there are shocking socioeconomic gaps that queen of the native americans and nonindian neighbors to it in terms of life expectancy, poverty, housing, medical care, violence, suicide, unemployment. The social ills have lingered for so long in our tribal communities that they are seen as normal and they threaten to become permanent. How do we account for these shocking inequities that exist to this very day that stock our tribal people . Social science, researchers tell us that these are unhealed wounds that have been inherited by our tribal communities, historical trauma that has been handed down into the present day from our legacy of common quest. The dispossession, the subjugation and the marginalization of native americans have left these marks and our tribal communities today. The end product of our excess single and social policies. If we look at this human deprivation we can see that its specifically designed to address these social ills for the human rights framework to rid us of the inherited ill effect of the legacy of the conquest and colonialism. That is what the ulin designed the declaration to do. So i think it is warranted to study this possible antidote to these hard to solve social ills that have been with us despite our best efforts to overcome them. A tough third reason why i wrote this book is that the u. N. Approval of this landmark declaration in the year 2007 surprised america. It taught us. Even though this landmark declaration was in the making in the u. N. For over 30 years, who open transnet process these it was pretty much unheralded by the rest of us here at home. Indian tribes and their attorneys were naturally focusing on federal indian law to meet our needs here domestically. It was approved by the u. N. And the year 2007 the tribes and the tribal attorneys and the general public were pretty much aware of that. And so since that time the Indian Country has began studying the stevan declaration, trying to fathom its possibilities. So as we are educating ourselves about this new Legal Framework, i felt that there was a need to provide some baseline information about the declaration, to look at some of its implications and some of its possibilities, to begin thinking about how to go about implementing these comprehensive standards and to the law and social policies and to assist Indian Country perhaps and the rest of the nation to understand the native american situation through may human rights plans. So this book attempts to provide this information and mls and its written for a general reading public. As we try to study and fathom the possibilities of this declaration and in the increase here at the college even just last spring the in the amol program hosted a conference here how to implement this u. N. Declaration so these are the reasons this book was written. I would like to turn now to basically what is this even a declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples and its new human rights framework for defining the native american rights. Basically this declaration is an International Human rights instrument. It sets forth for minimum human rights standards for protecting the survival, dignity and wellbeing of Indigenous People will fight, and that would include native americans and then United States and native hawaiians. It was approved by the u. N. In the year 2007. It was endorsed by the Obama Administration in the year 2010, and as i mentioned, today 150 nations around the world have endorsed the declaration. It contains the authentic aspirations of Indigenous Peoples because Indigenous Peoples wrote this document and negotiated it through the u. N. It took them almost 30 years to do it, but they did. And if you read this declaration, the 46 articles and the carless at the beginning of it, you will see that it reflects our native american aspirations, all of the issues and concerns that we have as tribal people, tribal leaders, tribal attorneys, law professors all of our issues are entranced in some shape or form in this comprehensive declaration. The standards are therefore very comprehensive in nature. The address the full range of native american issues and aspirations providing a complete framework for looking at the content and nature of our property rights, political rights, civil rights, economic rights social rights, religious rights and environmental rights. At the core of the framework is the indigenous human right to selfdetermination which is the core principle of our tribal Sovereignty Movement here in the u. S. , the right of selfdetermination. The human rights are described by the declaration of inherent rights. That means these are not rights that gave to the u. N. People. They are inherent rights that they already had to be that they rise from indigenous cultures, indigenous histories, indigenous languages and all the u. N. Declaration does here is it pulls from a larger body a modern International Humanrights law, he then treaties, customary International Law and it applies these treaty have rights and norms and customary International Law to the unique situation of Indigenous Peoples and tells us how to interpret the larger body of the law in the context of Indigenous Peoples so that we can have the same rights for the rest of humanities already enjoyed under the human rights law. The u. N. Declaration says that these inherent human rights by inherent im talking about inalienable rights that are indefeasible, that are larger than the nation and are supposed to be interpreted according to this document according to notions of equity, equality, justice, democracy and good faith. A very Just Foundation for these inherent human rights to get much more just to them the notions that give rise to the rights of the federal indian law that arose from the notions of colonialism, the notions of race and religious intolerance. These rights and the u. N. Declaration are not new rights or special rights for Indigenous Peoples. Rather as i mentioned earlier, the u. N. Simply applied in developing the standards look to the larger body of existing International Human rights law and pull them to the tailored situation of Indigenous Peoples and tells each nation how we should interpret that larger body of law in the context of Indigenous Peoples or what they can be accorded at long last the same kind of fundamental freedoms that the rest of humanity already enjoys. In my book i found that these human standards are largely compatible with u. S. Law and social policies that in many ways despite the dark side of the federal indian law. We have here in the United States the core human rights values. Our American Revolution was based on the human rights principle, the human rights principle is what boosts the nation. Furthermore, we had an indian selfdetermination policy that president nixon announced in 1970. This indian selfdetermination policy is very compatible with in many respects the selfdetermination framework of the u. N. Declaration. Third, our legal culture here in the u. S. At its very best in its finest hour seems to be compatible with these u. N. Standards as we can see that in the ten best indian cases ever decided, religious freedom cases and so on and so forth compatible with these standards. The problem is the legal culture in its finest hour is sometimes very fleeting in these cases that were eroded over time and our legal culture does not often rise to its finest hour, but in its finest hour it demonstrates that our legal culture is compatible with a human rights standards even though human rights or be left in federal indian law. But at the same time, my book finds that our body of law contains many areas that do need improvement. But to make sure the body of law and policy comply with these minimum standards. This u. N. Declaration asks each nation to implement these human rights standards in partnership with Indigenous Peoples to go forward arm in arm in consultation, in good faith with Indigenous People to provide funding to Indigenous People for Technical Assistance to go about implementing these standards. And i think that if we look around the world i think that we will see the rest of the world embarking on this implementation process. How was this declaration made . It was created in the u. N. Human rights freemarket through open and transparent process these. It wasnt negotiated by big spending lobbyists as we see in the dark corners of congress but in a fair and open in the light of day over and almost 30 year process as it moved step by step through the human rights remark, nations and diplomats commenting, refining, negotiating alongside Indigenous Peoples, pioneers to access the International Realm for the first time in 200 years to participate in the violence of these standards. The work product is the declaration that eventually emerged as firmly fixed and as a part of the u. N. Human rights system, the treaty system and the system of declarations that comprise the modern body of International Human rights law. So this is landmark in many respects. Its landmark because it makes the International Law accountable to Indigenous Peoples for the very first time. Its landmark because Indigenous People were able to access the International Realm for the first time to participate in making this instrument. And i would predict that if all of the nations around the world that have endorsed this declaration implement its provisions that will change the world, the way that the world looks at the some 350 million Indigenous Peoples around the world and it promises to guide each nation to steer us away from our inherited legacies of conquest and colonialism that stock the settler nations with inherited histories of colonialism. The status of the declaration however is that its not as a declaration of International Law in and of itself eighth legally binding instrument thats enforceable in federal courts. However, there are provisions that might be indirectly enforceable to the extent that they constitute a norm in customary International Law which is part of our common law or a u. N. Treaty to which the United States is a signatory. But beyond that, its not a legally binding instrument, its one that we have to proactively implement in consultation with the United States government. And in that regard, weve had since the Obama Administration approved it in the year 2010 weve had a Senate Indian Affairs Committee oversight hearing to begin looking at the policy ramifications of this. Weve had this declaration being the subject indian conferences around the country, tribal leader of forms, law School Conferences as we begin to educate ourselves about that. And then last year, we had the u. N. Special rubber conduct an official visit to the United States to go into consultations with Indian Tribes in the federal Government Agencies and he developed a report about the situation of Indigenous Peoples in the United States and their human rights that itself is his findings and recommendations for implementing this declaration. I would like to conclude the rest of my time by talking a little bit about the need for implementing the declaration in the United States. The threshold question before us , for all americans of good will including tribal people and nonindians alike is why do we need these even standards in the United States . That is a legitimate question that folks naturally are going to ask us. After all, many wonder where are the leading democracies in the world . Dont we have our own human rights heritage . And others may say well our nation was built on the human rights principle, and we may not have always lived up to it in our treatment of native americans, but do we have an obligation to heal a painful past when we personally had no hand in committing these appalling in justices against the native people in the growth and expansion of the nation . Other people may ask isnt the International Law ineffective for unenforceable, which i think is a mess myth. A lot of people dont like the u. N. And they dont want the u. N. To boss us around and International Law to boss us around. Others may ask why cant we just use our existing law and policy to address any lingering inequities klaxon we have a comprehensive body of the federal indian law. Weve got the bill of rights. Why not just use the bill of rights and treat everyone like and nothing more . So, theres a lot of a threshold questions and my book tries to examine these questions and explore answers to these questions terrie ed why do we need to implement these standards and our own land . And i came up for four reasons. For compelling reasons for implementing this need for implementing the standards in the United States, legal reasons, political reasons, social reasons and environmental reasons and i just want to go through them with you briefly. My first reason that i have for the need for implementing these standards in the u. S. Is the need to strengthen the federal indian law and policy and ive already talked about that. There is a need to reform the dark side of the total indian law to root out fell law of colonialism, the doctrines of the conquest, the jurisprudence of racism that carry these antiindigenous functions, the need to resolve the internal tension between the protective features of federal indian law and the antiindigenous features to try to inject for the very first time that human rights principle into our in mortal body of law. And this is especially true as we see the Supreme Court eroding many of our native american rights today. So we have a stronger legal reason here and the declaration addresses each and every one of these concerns that i just listed for you. It shows us how to root out colonialism in the dark side of the federal indian law, how to resolve this internal tension and bring human rights principles into the framework for defining our rights. Second, when we are looking at the legal reasons, might look the the kaput found that the u. S. Policy doesnt need the ulin standards in many important respects. Although it may come closer than that of most nations it still falls short. For example, the selfdetermination principal is seen by both the deprivation and modern International Law as a fundamental human rights worldwide. Yet in our own land, federal indian law doesnt see selfdetermination as a fundamental right of Indian Tribes and it says that congress can terminate the selfgovernment at war under the plan very power doctrine. Second, another principal in the declaration is the equality and nondiscrimination principal. It condemns any form of discrimination including local as unjust and scientifically false. But then on the other hand if you look at the federal indian law, youll see a very significant body of jurisprudence of racism in federal indian law. The way that the Supreme Court described indians as being savages with interior cultures and ways of life in the Supreme Court decisions and the cherokee nation, hitchcock into the modern era it leaves no doubt that the federal indian law is heavily painted with notions of racism as that harsh term as defined by websters dictionary book reading the plan language of these opinions. I could go through these cultural rights of survival to live free from any act, treaties, land rights, economic and social rights, the informed consent standard that the declaration, the human right to make the public media accountable to native americans, all of these rights are an effective under the current law for many reasons that are legal in the buck laid out in the book. Second there are social reasons that argue for the need for implementing the declaration and that is this is inherited legacy that i mentioned earlier that has left these imprints in society that are felt today that can be seen through the lens of historical trauma and that are a scene in the culture and in these hard to solve social ills. These social ills cry out for healing and reconciliation. And the declaration provides the antidote for the legacy of conquest. It shows us the pathway to provide a remedy in a human rights framework to heal the wounds from a painful past and bring about reconciliation to enable the nation to address, salt and then move beyond the inherited the legacy of conquest. It seems to me that is a very compelling social reason to implant the standards. When we have political reasons to implement the declaration, i think one of the most perplexing confounding political questions that concern the United States is how best to incorporate native americans into the body politics. This indian question has long perplexed our nation ever since then embarked on colonizing the tribes. Why do we do for indians now in the process of colonization that has run its course . This is a universal question that addresses settler nations are not the world with inherited histories of colonialism. What do we do with the native people in our new modern, free and space societies now and we have tried many approaches here in the United States, a series of zigzag policies about how to bring our tribal people into the body of politics, the rooster free mark, removal, guardianship and enforced to the assimilation , selfgovernment, determination and now indian selfdetermination. The problem is that the normal mode for incorporating immigrants into the nation simply doesnt work in the case of Indigenous Peoples because we already inhabit the nation. This declaration shows us how to do it, to bring native people into the body politic with their human rights impact and it basically reaffirms our selfdetermination policy. Fourth, theres some very compelling environmental problems, reasons for implementing the declaration because i think it is going to carry a very healthy byproduct here in the environmental rahm because there is a competency between recognizing and protecting indigenous cultures, indigenous habitat, indigenous ways of life and subsistence with developing a land ethic and our nation sorely needs this in order to address this and growing Environmental Crisis and make no mistake, we have an environmental problem worldwide. Its seen in the mass extinction of animals and plants, the pollution, exploitation, Climate Change leading to a concern among scientists about the failure now of the global life systems and the scientists are sounding an alarm but no one seems to be listening and i dont think we can solve this Environmental Crisis. We havent been able to. Its gotten worse, not better. Without first getting the ethic of how to become part ourself to the ocean . How should our modern society comport ourselves to the Natural World . Without such an ethic we cant solve this Environmental Crisis. Its too immense. It costs too much money to the it requires too much change and we lack the political will to solve this crisis because we simply dont have a value system or a clear and compelling efik land ethic within the western tradition the historical religion from the middle east provide us know guidance, nor does science or technology. We have to look to the Indigenous Peoples and the hunting and fishing and gathering cosmologies and value systems. In that we find the ingredients for a land ethic that we sorely need but the modern liberal has long forgotten so i think that by empowering Indigenous Peoples and protecting their human rights that relate to the environment we can bring them to the table to help us fashion a Truly American land ethic which we need to be this at this time im running out of time telling a lie want to just close by looking at a few implementation challenges. The u. N. Special raptors report on the United States from last year concluded that there are significant challenges here in the u. S. To overcome this and havent had a legacy of colonialism that we need to improve our existing programs and we need new measures to try to come to some kind of a reconciliation, and the study is a landmark study that leaves out ten areas, ten big areas where we need to work on all three branches of the federal government, the courts, congress, the executive branch. It lays out a big challenge to our nation to implement these standards. To implement the standards to build a National Campaign to coax the nation to develop a National Plan to implement these standards. Im talking about the mother of all campaigns tribal poverty and other legislative movements over the last two generations but now we must stride to implement these standards to call up a generation to do that with the challenges that lay ahead. Thirdly another threshold is we need to develop a clear and compelling principles to motivate such a campaign into the light of justice. Define that philosophy is not Rocket Science we dont have to go that far. That tradition that we have had from day number one is a history of with the abandon or justice they come to the world religion. And they tell us basically we can harbor hate or seek revenge. We can cope with injustice are live with it indefinitely but that doesnt solve anything. The specter of injustice assets before us. The third approach is simply to heal it to restore justice and our wisdom traditions over the millennia urges us to take the high road vitellus there is only five steps. First the injury has taken place. Second, when you have ventured someone you must go to someone to apologize and prostrate yourself to ask for forgiveness and a j. D. Wine apology. In important step to begin the healing process. The third step is to accept the apology and forgives. Very hard to do. A hint of the fourth step once it has cleared the air per to the guilt, shame, and make peace, with those traditions with the act of atonement to make amends to make it right. That is what is provided by the declaration. The fifth step, all of the above brings us to a reconciliation. I think we could rely on the wisdom traditions even the most grievous harm as sure as the rain must fall save must perform miraculous results to heal entire nations with the spiritual power that we have inherited of they sleep intel summoned if i think a movement will have to summon them. Concludes my remarks on this book. I want to end by reading to you a line or two from the book that talks about the fifth stage of healing and reconciliation. That says to be sure reconciliation the concord and the concord is the most difficult to achieve. Whenever we witness the rise of humanrights the power of Restorative Justice is invariably at work. With a higher power of human compassion. That unforgettable moment that you experienced that justice is at hand. Thank you. [applause] they think we are ready for a few questions as long as theyre easy. [laughter] i have a couple of questions with a doctor in. On the topic of hubris and the key at governments and policies . I am not understanding your question. Hubris . The arrogance of man of people in power that corrupts that power is absolute that within the United Nations gives americans the right if you made dignity, respect therefore to say i am zero of this and given this i am not allude to this through my bloodline . How does this provide the arrogance among the tribesmen dealing with the government . We are dealing with the most powerful nation on the planet. Eric ince in high places will not apologize, it will not admit it has feet of clay but we need to learn the language of humanrights to remind america of its own core values of the humanrights principles that have intimated the nation with the American Revolution to the present day ended is true we have not always lived up to these core values but with each turn where we make these core values that old ways of pale us to self correct even at great cost sometimes i think we the to resort to the former american it humanrights values given rights of the declaration that they are a as homegrown as apple pie. Weedy to remind america of its own core values of Public Discourse and hopefully we can and Work Together i am not saying this isnt an easy task but will take the work of a generation and all the Indian Country to fully incorporate the standards into Foreign Policy. I have a second part dealing with the global policy. With the United Nations declaration is that a factor in the role of the United States diplomacy with global humanitarian issues . Yes. I think it is very important because Foreign Policy is based on human rights as president eisenhower said up whatever america once in the world the past to take place in its own backyard. It is important we want to use human rights as a Foreign Policy tool to take care of this legacy of conquest here at home. I am from oklahoma they dont like the u. N. Or International Law but as long as we are a Member Nation of the United Nations to promote human rights in always running to the un whenever we tried to do humanitarian int to do humanitarian intervention or a call or punishment with the war against syria we go to you when we are still a member in this declaration they expect them to pay heed that is a new order of the day and ultimately our nation will extend the humanrights just like the world has abolished slavery and torture a and piracy and genocide simply because it is the right thing to do in the postcolonial h age. Then native american and selfdetermination what sort of level of selfdetermination is it about right street dependents or lesser models of relationships with the United States . Both the selfdetermination in principle of the declaration as well as our own policy indicate the selfdetermination would take place within the nation to run parallel to the sovereignty of the United States it places units limits on humanrights to dissolve the integrity of the nations states it contemplates a robust but determination that is right of Indigenous People to control their own destiny to selfgovernment in the and digit this institution and through setting policy over the indigenously and in territories a and habitats to protect the culture in the broadest sense of the word but it does not extend to succession for those nations to recognize human rights. It is consummate with the inherent tribal sovereignty principles under the