Faculty & Staff

IPLP’s faculty and staff are the foundation of our program.  IPLP’s faculty literally wrote the book in many areas and every professor  is actively involved in practical projects designed to protect and promote the rights of indigenous peoples.  IPLP’s staff assist both faculty and students in a variety of ways and make IPLP’s work possible.  And the University of Arizona’s commitment to Indian/Indigenous law doesn’t stop with IPLP – many other faculty write in the field and incorporate it into their classes

Faculty

S. James Anaya
James J. Lenoir Professor of Human Rights Law and Policy

Professor Anaya has lectured at universities, conferences, and training sessions throughout the world. Among his numerous publications is his definitive work, Indigenous Peoples in International Law (2d ed., Oxford University Press 2004).   He has been a consultant on matters of human rights and indigenous issues for numerous organizations and government agencies in several countries, and has represented indigenous groups from many parts of North and Central American before courts and international organizations.  In 2008, Professor Anaya was appointed as United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous Peoples, a position from which he will assess the condition of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples worldwide (while still holding his faculty position).  Full biography, including publications and presentations.

Robert A. Williams, Jr,
E. Thomas Sullivan Professor of Law and American Indian Studies
Director of the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy (IPLP) Program

An enrolled member of the Lumbee Indian Tribe of North Carolina, Professor Williams received his BA from Loyola College in 1977 and his JD from Harvard Law School in 1980.  His many works on American Indian law and policy include The American Indian in Western Legal Thought: The Discourses of Conquest (Oxford University Press, 1990); Linking Arms Together: American Indian Treaty Visions of Law and Peace, 1600-1800 (Oxford University Press, 1997); and Federal Indian Law: Cases and Materials (4th ed., with David Getches and Charles Wilkinson) (West, 1998). In addition, he has written more than 30 law review articles.  He has served as Associate Justice and Chief Justice for the Court of Appeals of the Pascua Yaqui Reservation. He presently serves as Judge Pro Tempore for the Tohono O'odham Nation.  Full biography, including publications and presentations.

Melissa L. Tatum
Research Professor of Law
Associate Director, Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program

Prior to moving to Tucson, Professor Tatum was Co-Director of the Native American Law Center at the University of Tulsa College of Law, and has been involved in many academic and professional activities that complement IPLP projects at The University of Arizona. She was a consultant for the Navajo Nation Rules Harmonization Project, directed the graduate law program in American Indian and Indigenous Law, and chaired numerous projects and professional groups related to indigenous peoples and women in legal education. She is widely published on topics ranging from cultural property protection to white collar crime jurisdiction to the handling of domestic violence cases by tribal courts.

Professor Tatum has taught a variety of general courses in the areas of constitutional law, juvenile law, torts, and criminal procedure in addition to her work in indigenous peoples' rights. She also taught at Wayne State University Law School, Michigan State University School of Law, and the University of Detroit Mercy Law School.

Her experience in judicial process is extensive. After graduating magna cum laude from University of Michigan Law School in 1992, Professor Tatum was a federal judicial clerk at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, and at the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Between 1999 and 2006 she served as a judge on the Southwest Intertribal Court of Appeals.

Professor Tatum will initially teach in the areas of federal Indian law and tribal government, and is responsible for the administration of the IPLP LL.M. and S.J.D. graduate degree programs.

Full biography, including publications and presentations.

Raymond D. Austin
Distinguished Jurist in Residence

Justice Austin is Navajo (Diné) from northeastern Arizona. He is a Vietnam era veteran of the United States Army and served on the Navajo Nation Supreme Court from 1985 to 2001.  Justice Austin received a BS from Arizona State University in 1979, earned a law degree from the University of New Mexico Law School in 1983, and, received a PhD in American Indian Studies (Law and Policy Concentration) from the University of Arizona in 2007.  He served as the Herman Phleger Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at the Stanford Law School in the spring of 1995. He has also lectured and taught short courses at the Harvard Law School, Arizona State University College of Law, University of Utah College of Law, and other law schools. He has lectured on Indian law and tribal law and judicial systems to members of the state bars of Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico and to other legal associations. Austin is a member of the Navajo Nation Bar Association and the state bars of Arizona and Utah. He is also a past member of the board of directors for the National Indian Justice Center, National American Indian Court Judges' Association, and the Advisory Council on Indian Legal Programs at the Arizona State University College of Law. He co-teaches and supervises students in the IPLP clinic with Professor Robert Hershey during the fall semester and teaches Tribal Courts & Tribal Law during the spring semester.  Full biography, including publications and presentations.

Robert A. Hershey
Director, Indigenous Peoples Law Clinic

Professor Hershey has specialized in Indian Affairs for over three decades, beginning with his work as Staff Attorney for the Fort Defiance Agency of Dinebeiina Nahilna Be Agaditahe (DNA Legal Services) on the Navajo Reservation. Since 1983, he has served as Special Litigation Counsel and Law Enforcement Legal Advisor to the White Mountain Apache Tribe, and from 1994 to 1996 as Special Counsel to the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. Hershey also serves, now in his tenth year, as Judge Pro Tempore for the Tohono O'odham; and Deputy Judge Pro Tempore for the Colorado River Indian Community Tribal Courts.  Professor Hershey's current courses include the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Clinic, Advanced Topics in Indian Law, and Globalization and the Preservation/Transformation of Culture. He has assisted tribes in forming and revising tribal constitutions and has conducted numerous training workshops for tribal judges and tribal court personnel. Professor Hershey is a member of White Mountain Apache, Hopi, and Pascua Yaqui Tribal Courts, and is licensed to practice in the U.S. Supreme Court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Federal District Court for the District of Arizona, and the Arizona and Montana State Bars.  Full biography, including publications and presentations.

James C. Hopkins
Associate Clinical Professor, Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program

Professor Hopkins is Algonquin/Metis from Quebec. He received his BA (1993) and LLB (1996) from the University of Toronto. He is a former law clerk to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and is a member of the Ontario Bar. Prior to joining the College of Law he was an Assistant Professor with the Faculty of Law, at the University of Alberta. He graduated from Harvard Law School's joint Masters of Laws and International Tax Program (LLM/ITP) in June 2000.  Professor Hopkins' area of interest is the intersection between trade, tax and aboriginal law. He is a recipient of the Harvard University International Tax Program's Award for Excellence in Research and Writing for his graduate thesis titled, “Democratization by Taxation: Democratic Experimentalism in Aboriginal Canada.” Full biography, including publications and presentations.

Joseph P. Kalt & Lance G. Morgan
Adjunct Professors

Professors Kalt and Morgan team teach the mini-course The Law, Policy, and Economics of Contemporary Tribal Economic Development, which is a unique opportunity to study and learn from two of Indian country's leading experts on American Indian economic development and the Native Nation Building model developed by the Harvard Project on American Indian Development and the University of Arizona Native Nations Institute.  Professor Kalt is regarded as the world's leading economist and authority on tribal economic development and Professor Morgan is a graduate of Harvard law school and CEO of one of Indian country's most successful tribal enterpises- Ho-Chunk Inc., which among many of its successful business ventures, publishes www.Indianz.com.

Marren Sanders
Adjunct Professor

Marren Sanders is Curriculum Development Manager with the Native Peoples Technical Assistance Office at the University of Arizona where she develops certificate level distance learning courses on Indigenous law, policy, and governance for Native nations’ leaders and as continuing legal education for attorneys and other legal professionals.  Dr. Sanders holds an LL.M. and S.J.D. (Doctorate in Law) in Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy and teaches Cultural Property at the UA James E. Rogers College of Law.  She received her J.D. from Suffolk University Law School and a B.A. from the University of Vermont. Full biography, including publications and presentations.

Staff

Erica DeFrain, Webmaster/Educational Technology Librarian
Erica first joined the College of Law in 2003 as an access services assistant before becoming the Educational Technology Librarian and IPLP Program webmaster in 2005. Erica has a master's degree in library science and recently completed a master’s in Educational Technology.

Kathy Deitering, Administrative Associate
Kathy has worked with the Indigenous Peoples Law & Policy (IPLP) Program as a Administrative Associate since 2001. Prior to coming to the IPLP Program, Kathy worked at the Office of International Student Programs and Services and the Center for Global Student Programs. Kathy is available to answer student inquiries in the Rountree Building.

Seánna Howard, Research Fellow
Seánna graduated in 2006 with a Master of Laws in Indigenous Peoples Law & Policy (IPLP). As an L.LM. student she assisted Professors Anaya and Williams on cases involving indigenous communities at the international level and helped in developing a program for the local Tohono O’odham Nation through the Indigenous Peoples Law Clinic. Prior to coming to the University of Arizona, Seánna lived and worked on human rights issues in South Africa and most recently was employed with the Assembly of First Nations in Canada. In her role as Research Fellow with the IPLP Program, Seánna is currently performing legal work on a number of active cases and projects including the representation of Maya communities in Belize, and the US-based Western Shoshone and Chiricahua Apache Nations.

Jennifer Kruse, Accountant, Indigenous People Law & Policy Program
Administrative Assistant, Finance & Administration
Jennifer began her position as accountant for the IPLP Program in June of 2006. She received a B.S. in Public Management & Policy from the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona in May of 2005. She is currently working on an Master's in Public Administration.

Affiliated Faculty

The leading scholars and teachers who constitute the primary IPLP Program faculty are part of a distinguished group of legal professionals at the college of law who are working in the field of indigenous peoples' rights and related areas (comparative law, international law and trade, intellectual property, international human rights, environmental law, family law).  These include:

Barbara Ann Atwood
Mary Anne Richey Professor of Law

Professor Atwood teaches Family Law, Civil Procedure, Legal Research and Analysis, Community Property and Federal Courts. She is a former trial attorney with Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. In her courses to first year and upper level law students she lectures on issues of jurisdiction and custody in Indian Country. She is the author of Flashpoints under the Indian Child Welfare Act: Toward a New Understanding of State Court Resistance, 51 Emory L. J. 587 (2002); Tribal Jurisprudence and Cultural Meanings of the Family, 79 Neb. L. Rev. 577 (2000); Identity and Assimilation: Changing Definitions of Tribal Power over Children, 83 Minn. L. Rev. 927 (1999); and Fighting over Indian Children: The Uses and Abuses of Jurisdictional Ambiguity, 36 UCLA L. Rev. 1051 (1989). Professor Atwood has been the recipient of many teaching awards, and most recently was honored in 2004 with the Graduate College Graduate and Professional Education Teaching and Mentoring Award.  Full biography, including publications and presentations

Graeme W. Austin
J. Byron McCormick Professor of Law

Professor Austin teaches Copyright Law, Trademarks and Unfair Competition, Contemporary Issues in Intellectual Property, International Intellectual Property Law, and Constitutional Law. He has served as an Expert Witness to the Waitangi Tribunal, Pouakani #B hearings in New Zealand and as an Advisor to the American Law Institute Project on Intellectual Property, Principles Governing Jurisdiction, Choice of Law, and Judgments in Transnational Disputes. His publications include: Re-Treating Intellectual Property? The WAI 262 Proceeding and the Heuristics of Intellectual Property Law, 11 Cardozo J. of Int'l & Comp. L. 333 (2003); Valuing "Domestic Self-Determination" in International Intellectual Property Jurisprudence, 77 Chi.- Kent L. Rev. 1155 (2002); and The Treaty of Waitangi and Child Custody: Some Legal and Rhetorical Issues, 10 Austl. J. L. & Soc'y. 85 (1994). Professor Austin is the recipient of the 2003 Leslie F. and Patricia Bell Faculty Service Award.  Full biography, including publications and presentations

David A. Gantz
Samuel M. Fegtly Professor of Law
Director of the International Trade Law Program
Associate Director, National Law Center for Inter-American Free Trade

Professor Gantz teaches International Trade Law, Public International Law, Introduction to the U.S. Legal System, International Environmental Law, and European Union Law and Foreign Investment and Technology Transfer. His courses cover key legal and policy issues in international commerce, trade and investment under United States and international law. He is a former member of the Office of the Legal Adviser for the U.S. Department of State. His publications include: The Evolution of FTA Investment Provisions: From NAFTA to the United States - Chile Free Trade Agreement , 19 Am. U. Int'l L. Rev. 679 (2004); New Changes for the Maquiladoras: Legal and Policy Implications of NAFTA Article 303 for United States-Mexico Trade, 30 Denver J. Int'l L. & Pol'y 1 (2001); and Potential Conflicts Between Investor Rights and Environmental Regulation Under NAFTA's Chapter 11, 33 Geo. Wash. Int'l L. Rev. 651 (2001).  Full biography, including publications and presentations

Boris Kozolchyk
Evo DeConcini Professor of Law
Director and President, National Law Center for Inter-American Free Trade

Professor Kozolchyk teaches International Commercial Transactions, Commercial Letters of Credit, Comparative Law, International Transactions Law, and Economic Development and Jurisprudence. He has served as the U.S. representative to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, the Director of Law Reform Project for USAID in San José, Costa Rica and continually participates in numerous international conferences and conventions, including the O.A.S. Conference on Private International Law and the International Chamber of Commerce Revision of the Uniform Customs and Practices for Documentary Credits. Professor Kozolchyk has published over 100 books, articles and other writings on international commerce and related topics. The National Law Center for Inter-American Free Trade is an international research and educational center with a mission to bring about the legal implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement and other free trade agreements in the Western Hemisphere. Following a meeting of the Organization of American States honoring Kozolchyk, US President Bill Clinton expressed his appreciation, “ ... I want to congratulate Dr. Kozolchyk for his work in establishing the National Law Center for Inter-American Free Trade. ... it is your commitment and the commitment of other dedicated individuals at the state and local level that will make this path-breaking agreement a reality. Thank you for your participation and support.”  Full biography, including publications and presentations

Ana Maria Merico
Associate Professor of Law and Affiliated Professor of Latin American Studies

Professor Merico, a native of Buenos Aires, Argentina, teaches Civil Procedure, Federal Courts, and Comparative Law. Her research projects include an exploration of the federalism limits to the Treaty Power, and a comparative overview of the American discovery system prepared in Spanish for Argentine academics. Her publications include: Of Federalism, Human Rights, and the Holland Caveat: Congressional Power to Implement Treaty Obligations, 25 Mich. J. Int'l. L. 265 (2004); Of Maine’s Sovereignty, Alden’s Federalism, and the Myth of Absolute Principles, 33 University of California Davis Law Review 325 (2000); and United States v. Morrison and the Emperor’s New Clothes, Journal of College & University Law (2001). Professor Merico was honored as the 2000 -2001 Teacher of the Year by the Student Bar Association of the Rogers College of Law, and she serves as the faculty advisor for the Hispanic National Bar Association.  Full biography, including publications and presentations

Leslye A. Obiora
Professor of Law

Professor Obiora teaches Human Rights, Public International Law, Jurisprudence, and Gender and the Law. Her courses cover topics such as minority and group rights in Africa, women’s rights under international law and the effects of globalization on human rights. Professor Obiora’s publications include: Remapping the Domain of Property in Africa, 12 U. Fla. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 57 (2000); Reclaiming a Heritage of Resistance, Excavating an Alternative Gender Critique Paradigm, 26 Syracuse J. Int’l L. & Com. 203 (1999); and Symbolic Episodes in the Quest for Environmental Justice, 21 Hum. Rts. Q. 464 (1999). She has been awarded several grants and honors in recognition of her scholarly contributions and service. She was a residential fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton and at the Rockefeller Study Center in Bellagio, Italy. On account of her expertise, Professor Obiora was recruited by the World Bank to manage a gender and law program.  Full biography, including publications and presentations