The United Nations has once again intervened in the Nooksack human rights calamity, in unprecedented fashion.

In each of the last three years, United Nations human rights officials have decried human rights violations against over 60 Indigenous persons at Nooksack.

Last Friday, the UN criticized the United States and Nooksack governments for failing to substantively respond to its two prior interventions regarding the violated property rights of seven families, “who self-identify as Indigenous Nooksack, but had been disenrolled from Nooksack tribal membership.” The UN is also expressing concern about “fair trial violations” at Nooksack.

Each UN intervention, one after the next, is unprecedented, both in Geneva and the United States. That is because a great many human rights advocates are highly deferential to Tribal sovereignty and otherwise afraid to criticize Tribal nations for human rights abuse.

The UN’s latest intervention comes as U.S. Interior Department Secretary Deb Haaland faces rising criticism for ignoring Indigenous human rights abuses on Tribal lands.

Secretary Haaland’s Human Rights Record Criticized

Over the last few months, Secretary Haaland’s Indigenous human rights record has been increasingly questioned or criticized.

NPR recently reported how she has failed to implement a law she spearheaded while in Congress to hold the federal government accountable for the overwhelming number of missing or murdered Indigenous people in the U.S. each year, explaining:

Indigenous people have held Deb Haaland in high regard since she became the first-ever Indigenous cabinet secretary, so a lot of people are hesitant to criticize her. But a number of commissioners say their confidence in her ability to champion Indigenous needs is slipping.

Similarly, The New York Times reported:

Despite President Biden naming the first Indigenous cabinet secretary, some Indigenous voters said they still felt voiceless in Washington, and ignored by a federal government that they say has inflicted centuries of harm.

In its latest intervention, the UN spotlighted the failure by Secretary Haaland and the Biden administration, as well as Washington state and Nooksack authorities, to protect the seven families’ federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) home ownership rights.

Secretary Haaland has dodged the politically fraught human rights calamity at Nooksack—including each of the UN’s interventions since 2022—as she aspires to run for the New Mexico governorship. She is expected to be the first cabinet Secretary to leave the administration after the November presidential election.

In a June 2024 email, Secretary Haaland’s office deflected a plea from the seven Nooksack families towards the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (calling it a HUD “issue”) and to the State Department, despite both agencies looking to Interior as the “led agency” regarding the human rights violations at Nooksack as well as the UN’s historic interventions.

The UN’s Tribal Interventions “Never Before Seen”

Prior to 2022, at Nooksack, the UN had never before waded into what federal and tribal officials in the United States blithely call “an internal matter.” As the Seattle Times explained in 2023:

Eric Eberhard, a University of Washington School of Law professor and an expert on Native legal issues, has never before seen U.N. experts wade into “what might be viewed as an internal tribal matter,” as opposed to a disagreement between a tribe and the U.S. Not once, let alone twice, he said.

A few passages from the UN’s 2023 communication to the State Department are incisive, and historic.

The UN explained “that all level of state authorities, national, regional, local, Parish, Tribe, and any other, have to abide by national and internationally recognized human rights law and standards and that the national Government has the duty to oversee that this takes place.”

The UN also “emphasize[d] that States and indigenous authorities share the responsibility for ensuring that processes and decisions by indigenous authorities accord with international human rights, particularly in the context of possible conflicts between the rights and interests of individual indigenous members and the collective rights and interest of an indigenous people or community.”

In what may prove over time to be a watershed moment in domestic Indigenous human rights protection vis-a-vis Tribal nations, the UN proclaimed: “indigenous institutions and justice systems have an obligation to comply with international human rights standards.”

Also prior to 2022, the UN had never before intervened with a Tribal nation that had violated internationally recognized human rights laws.

In its 2023 communication to the Nooksack Tribe, the UN “emphasize[d] that the UNDRIP protects both individual and collective rights of indigenous peoples and that it needs to be interpreted as complementing - and not acting contrary - to the principles of justice, democracy, respect for human rights, equality and non-discrimination, good governance and good faith.”

The UN’s interventions at Nooksack are believed to represent Geneva’s first application of the UNDRIP’s individual rights provisions to Tribal nations, which generally stand above reproach in civil and human rights communities.

In 2021, Secretary Haaland testified before the UN, proclaiming: “I strongly affirm the United States’ support for the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and our commitment to advancing Indigenous Peoples’ rights at home and abroad.” Her domestic human rights record tells a different story.

Gabe Galanda is an Indigenous rights attorney and the managing lawyer at Galanda Broadman. He has been named to Best Lawyers in America in the fields of Native American Law and Gaming Law from 2007 to 2024, and dubbed a Super Lawyer by his peers from 2013 to 2024. Below are all of the communications between the UN, State Department, and Nooksack Tribe since 2022.

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2-1-22 UN OHRC Communication to US State Department

2-24-22 US State Department Communication to UN OHRC

3-31-23 UN OHCR Communication to Nooksack Tribe

3-31-23-UN OHRC Communication to US State Department

6-1-23 US State Department Communication to UN OHRC

6-6-23 Nooksack Tribe Communication to UN OHRC

9-27-24 UN OHCR Impact of the Work of Special Procedures - Policy Reform - Nooksack