2002 ABA Annual Meeting
August 12-13, 2002
Washington, DC

Proposed by:
Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources
Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities

Report 110: Approved by the ABA House of Delegates as revised.

The recommendation was revised to read as follows:

RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association endorses the use of negotiation and settlement processes to resolve Indian reserved water right claims provided the concerned Indian Tribes elect to pursue such processes, as well s the availability of adequate technical resources as an important precondition of achieving successful settlements, and specifically urges Congress and the Administration to support these settlement processes by:

• Continuing to make the negotiation of Indian water right settlements a high priority of the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of Justice;
• Appointing and funding federal negotiating teams in every river system or basin where settlement proscpets are favorable and requiring federal negotiating teams to regularly elicit and incorporate, consistent with the federal trust responsibility, the views of the Tribes involved when formulating federal negotiating positions and to bear a fair share of mediation costs and technical and legal work directly supporting settlement discussions;
• Providing timely and adequate funds so that Indian Tribes have the legal and technical expertise necessary to participate effectively in settlement processes and ensuring, in conjunction with state governments, that other water users also have necessary legal and technical resources;
• Appropriating adequate funds for the settlements themselves and for federal teams to assist in implementing the settlements; and
• Ensuring that the resources necessary for negotiating settlements and for settlements themselves do not compete with other Department of the Interior funding priorities.

FURTHER RESOLVED, That when evaluating proposed settlements, the federal government should consider not just avoided federal litigation costs, but other factors as well including (a) the opportunity to address historic injustices, with the goal of fulfilling the continuing federal trust obligation to support viable tribal communities; and (b) the settlement’s potential benefit to local, State, and national economies.