The interests of the Navajo Nation do not end at the reservation border. This chapter discusses three areas where the Navajo Nation must push the physical and legal boundaries of sovereignty in order to protect tribal interests. When it comes to water rights, off-reservation environmental destruction such as uranium mining, and protection of sacred sites, the Navajo Nation has played an active role asserting its interests and lobbying neighboring non-Indian governments. This chapter celebrates such efforts and emphasizes the ways Navajo interests are interconnected with surrounding off reservation communities.

Navajo economic development and governance will always be hard. Located within the United States, the Navajo Nation has to deal with both external and internal challenges. The conclusion, however, offers measured optimism. Whenever the tribal has faced challenges, such as corruption or the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been leaders who have stood up for the people. The chapter ends by arguing that there is space for the Navajo Nation to push its independence and that non-Indians should be allow the tribe to set its own path.

A Common Law for Our Age of Colonialism: documents instances in which modern US Supreme Court decisions depart from historic first principles. The article demonstrates that many of these changes have come in cases involving individuals who are not members of the tribe in question. Frickey documents that the result has been a profound encroachment upon the Indian canons, thus eliminating the foundational interpretational principles that made federal Indian law unique.