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Regulatory and Adjudicatory Civil Jurisdiction

Learn about tribal authority to regulate and adjudicate civil matters.

Transcript

A tribe has the ability to create laws and regulate on-reservation activity through the tribe’s regulatory jurisdiction, also known as legislative jurisdiction. Tribes have almost total authority to regulate their own members’ activities on their reservations. However, tribes have limited authority to regulate non-Indians, even when non-Indians are on the tribe’s reservation.

I. Internal Regulation

Tribes are sovereigns, which means that tribes have the authority to make their own laws...