"Rights of Nature" and wild rice lawsuit set new possibilities for bolstering treaty rights.

A recently filed lawsuit over the rights of manoomin, wild rice, offers a path for protecting treaty rights and indigenous resources. "Rights of nature" cases apply indigenous principles in the legal contexts of the courts of the conqueror. “The White Earth case is probably the most exciting thing to come down the road in the last five or 10 years from a rights-of-nature perspective,” said Thomas Lindzey, senior legal counsel for the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights. Read the Indian Country Today article.