Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1484_aplc.pdf
Page Number: 16.0

Cite as:  599 U. S. ____ (2023) 

13 

Opinion of the Court 

Fourth, the Tribe argues that, in 1868, the Navajos would 
have understood the treaty to mean that the United States
must take affirmative steps to secure water for the Tribe.
But the text of the treaty says nothing to that effect.  And 
the  historical  record  does  not  suggest  that  the  United 
States  agreed  to  undertake  affirmative  efforts  to  secure
water  for  the  Navajos—any  more  than  the  United  States
agreed to farm land, mine minerals, harvest timber, build 
roads, or construct bridges on the reservation.  The record 
of the treaty negotiations makes no mention of any water-
related obligations of the United States at all.  See Treaty
Between the United States of America and the Navajo Tribe 
of Indians With a Record of the Discussions That Led to Its 
Signing.4 

* 

* 

* 
The 1868 treaty reserved necessary water to accomplish
the  purpose  of  the  Navajo  Reservation.    See  Winters  v. 
United  States,  207  U. S.  564,  576–577  (1908).  But  the 
treaty did not require the United States to take affirmative 
steps  to  secure  water  for  the  Tribe.  We  reverse  the 
judgment  of  the  U. S.  Court  of  Appeals  for  the  Ninth
Circuit. 

It is so ordered. 

—————— 
Nation 33, 40.  But as already explained, the Tribe has failed to identify
any such duty in the 1868 treaty. 

4 The  intervenor  States  separately  argue  that  the  Navajo  Tribe’s 
claimed  remedies  with  respect  to  the  Lower  Colorado  River  would 
interfere with this Court’s decree in Arizona v. California, 547 U. S. 150 
(2006).  The  question  of  whether  certain  remedies  would  violate  the 
substance of this Court’s 2006 decree is a merits question, not a question
of  subject-matter  jurisdiction.    Because  we  conclude  that  the  treaty 
imposes no duty on the United States to take affirmative steps to secure 
water  in  the  first  place,  we  need  not  reach  the  question  of  whether 
particular remedies would conflict with this Court’s 2006 decree.