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ARIZONA v. NAVAJO NATION 

Syllabus 

Held: The 1868 treaty establishing the Navajo Reservation reserved nec-
essary water to accomplish the purpose of the Navajo Reservation but 
did not require the United States to take affirmative steps to secure 
water for the Tribe.  Pp. 6–13.

(a) The Tribe asserts a breach-of-trust claim based on its view that 
the 1868 treaty imposed a duty on the United States to take affirma-
tive steps to secure water for the Navajos.  To maintain such a claim 
here, the Tribe must establish, among other things, that the text of a
treaty,  statute,  or  regulation  imposed  certain  duties  on  the  United 
States.  See United States v. Jicarilla Apache Nation, 564 U. S. 162, 
173–174, 177–178.  The Federal Government owes judicially enforcea-
ble duties to a tribe “only to the extent it expressly accepts those re-
sponsibilities.”  Id.,  at  177.  Whether  the Government  has  expressly 
accepted  such  obligations  “must  train  on  specific  rights-creating  or 
duty-imposing”  language  in  a  treaty,  statute,  or  regulation.    United 
States v. Navajo Nation, 537 U. S. 488, 506. 

Here, while the 1868 treaty “set apart” a reservation for the “use and
occupation of the Navajo tribe,” 15 Stat. 668, it contains no language
imposing a duty on the United States to take affirmative steps to se-
cure water for the Tribe.  See Navajo Nation, 537 U. S., at 506.  Nota-
bly,  the  1868  treaty  did  impose  a  number  of  specific  duties  on  the 
United States, but the treaty said nothing about any affirmative duty
for the United States to secure water.  As this Court has stated, “In-
dian  treaties  cannot  be  rewritten  or  expanded  beyond  their  clear 
terms.”  Choctaw Nation v. United States, 318 U. S. 423, 432.   

To  be  sure,  this  Court’s  precedents  have  stated  that  the  United 
States  maintains a general trust relationship with Indian tribes, in-
cluding the Navajos.  Jicarilla, 564 U. S., at 176.  But unless Congress 
has created a conventional trust relationship with a tribe as to a par-
ticular trust asset, this Court will not “apply common-law trust prin-
ciples” to infer duties not found in the text of a treaty, statute, or reg-
ulation.    Id.,  at  178.  Here,  nothing  in  the  1868  treaty  establishes  a
conventional trust relationship with respect to water.  And it is unsur-
prising that a treaty enacted in 1868 did not provide for all of the Nav-
ajos’  current  water  needs  155  years  later.    Under  the  Constitution, 
Congress and the President have the responsibility to update federal 
law  as  they  see  fit  in  light  of  the  competing  contemporary  needs  for 
water. 

(b) Other  arguments  offered  by  the  Navajo  Tribe  to  support  its 
claims under the 1868 treaty are unpersuasive.  First, that the 1868 
treaty established the Navajo Reservation as a “permanent home” does
not  mean  that  the  United  States  agreed  to  take  affirmative  steps  to 
secure water for the Tribe.  Second, the treaty’s express requirement 
that the United States supply seeds and agricultural implements for a