Talk:Executive Order 13175

Peer review

This page pulls together a lot of information. Here are some comments and suggestions:

• In the opening, "the federal government's previous commitments to tribal self-government, self-determination, and tribal sovereignty": self-determination and tribal sovereignty are highly controversial words that mean very different things to different people in this relationship. Specifically, for some indigenous peoples, sovereignty would mean no longer being "dependent nations." It would be helpful to know whether and how this order expanded up previous policy. Would a neutral observer describe the federal goverment as already committed to these things?
  • Haskew quotes someone as saying: "Indian nations today are faced with a critical dichotomy in their treatment by the federal government. For the most part, Congress has embarked on a path of promoting and encouraging economic development and self-sufficiency, while the Supreme Court has taken virtually every opportunity in recent years to undercut the legal and practical basis of reservation self-govemment." (p. 34)
  • Similarly, this sentence under Response seems a overly optimistic: "The principles of self-government, self-determination, and tribal sovereignty have been foundational in Indian policy since President Nixon." Maybe "publicly acknowledged" is more accurate than foundational.
  • For a more critical take, consider Steven Newcomb of the Indian Law Institute [1]
• Executive Order 12875 — when was this?
• "President Clinton in particular established himself as the champion of tribal sovereignty, a position accepted, at least in part, by recognized tribal leaders." — This sentence seems to misinterpret the article which said: "President Clinton has led tribal leaders to believe that he is a supporter of tribal sovereignty interests, and tribal leaders have expressed their willingness to hold him to his word." (p. 39)
• In Provisions, if you are effectively quoting, it might be better to use quotation marks around phrases like "considering, developing, and implementing policies that are anticipated to have significant impact" even if you change the tense of verbs etc.
• Maybe move this sentence up into the beginning of the section? "The central provision of Executive Order 13175 is the consultation requirement…"
• "President George W. Bush continued to support the ideas…" — is there a source for this? Look for something beyond the text of an executive order.
• "Barack Obama also publicly dedicated his administration" — This may well be true, but only if it refers to an event larger than an executive order. Something at the Tribal Nations Conference?
• The three sentences beginning "Executive orders are typically unenforceable…" could be shortened into a briefer summary and made easier for the average reader to understand.
• It would be helpful to understand the idea of self-determination and consultation proposed in this Executive Order, and how they might differ from the vision of UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. See [2] for the critical difference:

"...the United States recognizes the significance of the Declaration's provisions on free, prior and informed consent, which the United States understands to call for a process of meaningful consultation with tribal leaders, but not necessarily the agreement of those leaders, before the actions addressed in those consultations are taken." In other words, the United States may dictate actions and policies that affect the lives and property of indigenous peoples without their consent, but they may be informed.

There's a lot of great material and great work here. Hope this helps complete it. --Carwil (talk) 20:43, 13 April 2015 (UTC)