Title: Native Americans and the Law : Native Americans Under Current United States Law
Headings: 
Native Americans and the Law: Native Americans Under Current United States Law
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Content: The Duro decision prompted a federal legislative override; the constitutionality of this override has been questioned, and its effect remains uncertain. Other discovery-related limitations on tribal power involve the exercise of civil jurisdiction. In Montana v. United States, 450 U.S. 544 (198 l), the Supreme Court held that tribes could not exercise civil regulatory jurisdiction over non-Indian activities on non-Indian-owned lands within the bounds of reservations, unless the non-Indian had some commercial relationship with the tribe or the activity threatened or had some direct upon the tribe's political integrity, economic security, or health or welfare. In Strate v. A-l Contractors, 520 U.S. 438 (1997), the Court expanded this rule to deny a tribal court the right to hear a civil dispute brought by a non-Indian against another non-Indian for a tort arising on a state right-of way within the reservation. Tribes exercise jurisdiction over Indian Country, as defined in 11 U.S.C. 8 115 1. Indian Country includes all land within the limits of Indian reservations, all "dependent Indian communities", and all restricted Indian allotments, i.e., individual restricted parcels formerly part of reservations but allotted to Individual tribal members pursuant to the General Allotment Act of 1887 or similar statute. Reservations, for the most part, resulted from treaties. Conceptually, "reservations" were not lands given to the tribes, but tribal lands reserved by the tribes from larger tracts other parts of which were ceded to the United States. This applies to other treaty rights as well: