Renowned Indigenous Law Professor Lindsay Robertson opens up vistas of Oklahoma history and law

The International Indigenous Trade Mission and Conference is always honored to have Dr. Lindsay G. Robertson serve as one of our uniquely expert guides! Dr. Robertson is one of the world’s leading experts on tribal jurisdiction and sovereignty. His lectures are always entertaining and enlightening. They provide insight into how the Indigenous trade world of today was born out of the history of Indian Territory (now the State of Oklahoma), and how Oklahoma law and policy issues currently impact Indigenous trade.

Here is a fine example of Dr. Robertson guiding one of our previous Oklahoma Tribal Business Tours as we journey through various Indigenous territories of Oklahoma.

Dr. Robertson joined the faculty at the University of Oklahoma College of Law in 1997. At OU, he teaches courses in Federal Indian Law, Comparative and International Indigenous Peoples Law, Constitutional Law and Legal History. He serves as Faculty Director, Center for the Study of American Indian Law and Policy. He is the Special Legal Advisor to the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Indigenous Issues, and has recently returned from a year spent at UCLA as visiting law professor. Dr. Robertson is Founding Director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic. He was Private Sector Advisor to the U.S. Department of State delegations to the Working Groups on the U.N. Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2004-06), and the American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2004-07). From 2010 to 2012, Dr. Robertson was a member of the U.S Department of State Advisory Committee on International Law. In 2014, Dr. Robertson served as advisor on Indigenous Peoples’ Law to the Chair of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Also in 2014, Dr. Roberston was the recipient of the first David L. Boren Award for Outstanding Global Engagement. He has spoken widely on international and comparative Indigenous Peoples’ Law issues in the United States, Europe, Latin America and Asia. Dr. Robertson is an elected member of the American Law Institute and the American Bar Foundation and serves as a Justice on the Supreme Court of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. He speaks fluent Spanish and German.

In 2005, Dr. Lindsay G. Robertson published the authoritative Conquest by Law (Oxford University Press).

This textbook is a go-to source for legal and historical researchers around the world. It is also a very readable examination of the core pillar of thinking used to justify the various European claims of title over Indigenous lands. Various nations-states (USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia) have invoked the “Doctrine of Discovery” as a political underpinning of their policies on Indigenous peoples and lands. Conquest by Law provides superior, overwhelming evidence that the “Doctrine of Discovery” is, and has always been, baseless and spurious.

Dr. Robertson lectures extensively on Indigenous law and is the leading authority in the United States on the convergence of American Indian law, policy and history.