Duo fighting for American Indians 

By Chan Tran
Daily Forty-Niner

American Indian Studies Professor Troy Johnson and former Cal State Long Beach student Don Caldwell will try to make federal Indian law history by attempting to try the United States for treaty violation among other federal issues.

"Indian people need good attorneys," Johnson said. "No one has successfully taken and challenged the United States on a World Court."

Caldwell left Tuesday for the University of Nottingham in England to study international law in a one-year program. Upon returning, he will work with Johnson to bring U.S.-wrongdoings against the American Indians to the World Court in Hague, Netherlands.

"If we have a case for treaty violation and restoration of Indian land, then we can take the U.S. to the World Court and present the claim," he said.

To date there have been no cases where this has been attempted, Caldwell and Johnson said.

When Caldwell, a returning CSULB student, enrolled in a federal Indian law course three years ago it fulfilled his humanitarian and scholastic goals.

"As naïve as this sounds, the U.S. has broken a lot of promises to the American Indian and did not honor their word commitment," said Caldwell, who decided to major in interdisciplinary studies with a concentration on Federal Indian Law and Native American legal studies.

"I was impressed with his federal law and treaty law knowledge," Johnson said. "I recommended he should pursue treaty law on the World Court."

Johnson said his first priority after Caldwell gets back is to define to the World Court the issue of sovereignty for Indian people all over ­ Canada and South America included ­ and work toward a definite legal definition of sovereignty for all American Indians.

American Indian tribes had sovereignty before the Marshall Trilogy Court

Cases, which established the Indian nations and tribes as designated domestic dependent nations to the U.S. government, Caldwell said.

In 1924, the United States declared an American Indian could become a citizen. However, "citizenship is a legal terminology that Anglo-American created," Caldwell said. "Most Native Americans do not consider themselves citizens [of the United States]."

Today, the American Indians have what would be considered "diminished sovereignty," Johnson said.

Among other topics Caldwell plans to take to the World Court is genocide against American Indians.

"Around 10 million American Indians were here before the first European contact," Johnson said. "Between 1492 and 1890 there were 225,000 left. The United States will never be great until it answers to the subject of [American Indian] genocide."

"I'm not sure how I'm going to do that yet, but I'm going to try," he said.

When asked why there has been no successful attempt at bringing these issues in the World Court, Caldwell said: "No one has put it all together. Indians have talked about it, some of the smarter attorneys especially.

"Everybody figures -- no you can't do it. Someone has to take the time to put the legal case [together], and that's what I'm doing," he said.

When contacted, an attorney at the California Indian Legal Service declined to be quoted. The CILS is a non-profit law firm providing legal representation to American Indians and their tribes.