Judicial Termination of Treaty Water Rights: The Snake River Case

This article criticized the Idaho district court\u27s resolution of the Nez Perce Tribe\u27s water rights in the Snake River Basin Adjudication (SRBA). The scope of the tribe\u27s claims were considerable, since they included the right to maintain their fishing practices at the time of their 1855 treaty, The article examined the SRBA decision, the purposes of the 1855 treaty, the nature of the tribe\u27s off-reservation water rights, and the unprincipled termination of those rights by the 1999 SRBA court\u27s decision. The article\u27s call for a correction by the Idaho Supreme Court, which the epilogue to the article noted included a conflict-of-interest on the part of the SRBA court, was later obviated by a settlement between the tribe and the state