Rebecca Tsosie

"There is a collective force to the values and expression of justice within traditional Native legal systems," Tsosie writes. "Accounts of Native peacemaking systems have also been linked to work within the fields of alternative dispute resolution, restorative justice, and therapeutic jurisprudence to reveal the psychology of healing within families and communities experiencing phenomena such as domestic violence and substance abuse."

Tsosie's speech explores the lessons that have emerged from this important work to identify the agency of indigenous peacemaking within a larger global context. It  examines the structure of justice within national and international systems and probes the nature of reconciliation as an active process that might be used to heal existing problems at a larger level of social interaction.

Tsosie teaches in the areas of Indian law, Property, Bioethics, and Critical Race Theory, as well as seminars in International Indigenous Rights and in the College's Tribal Policy, Law, and Government Master of Laws program. She has written and published widely on doctrinal and theoretical issues related to tribal sovereignty, environmental policy and cultural rights, and is the author of many prominent articles dealing with cultural resources and cultural pluralism. Professor Tsosie also is the co-author with Robert Clinton and Carole Goldberg of a federal Indian law casebook. Her current research deals with Native rights to genetic resources.
 
Tsosie, who is of Yaqui descent, has worked extensively with tribal governments and organizations and serves as a Supreme Court Justice for the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation.