Early December 2018, four Japanese officials came to the University of Oklahoma Faculty of Law to meet with Dr. Lindsay Robertson, IITIO Executive Board Member and Professor/ Faculty Director, Center for the Study of American Indian Law and Policy and Ahrens Kerwood (OU Law ’17). The topic of the discussion was indigenous peoples law in the United States, including international Indigenous trade. Visiting from Japan were Ken-ichi Ochiai and Teruki Tsunemoto, who are both professors at the Center for Ainu and Indigenous Studies at the University of Hokkaido. Also attending was Ayase Horikawa, chief representative of Manufactured Imports and Investment Promotion Organization; and Hiroshi Maruoka, Ainu policy officer with the Cabinet Secretariat for the Government of Japan.
Ahrens, who speaks Japanese, interned while in law school at the University of Hokkaido with Dr. Tsunemoto and Prof. Ochiai.
The Center for Ainu and Indigenous Studies at the University of Hokkaido is very much interested in attending the Spring 2019 IITIO Indigenous Trade mission and Conference as various Indigenous trade topics of interest to Ainu so as to further indigenous trade between American tribes and the Japanese Ainu.
This upcoming Spring 2019 IITIO Indigenous Trade mission and Conference will take place June 2-3-4, 2019 at the College of Law, University of Oklahoma. The themes for discussion and presentation this spring are:
New NAFTA – USMCA – Indigenous Trade Opportunities Explained
Financing Indigenous Nation-to-Nation Trade
Supply Chain Management & Tribal Trade
Use of Free Trade Zones in Global Indigenous Trade
UN Sustainable Development, Environmental Responsibility and Indigenous Trade
Day Two of the three-day event is reserved for business-to-business “meet and greet,” an export café, and a tour of a selected tribal industry. During this time Canadian, American and International Indigenous businesses will have the opportunity to develop business relationships and explore possible trade deals.
For more information on the Spring 2019 IITIO Indigenous Trade Mission and Conference see the IITIO website at https://iitio.org/
