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Page Number: 15

12 

ARIZONA v. NAVAJO NATION 

Opinion of the Court 

United States and the Navajos knew how to impose specific 
affirmative duties on the United States when they wanted
to do so. 

Third,  the  Navajos  refer  to  the  lengthy  Colorado  River 
water  rights  litigation  that  unfolded  in  a  series  of  cases 
decided by this Court from the 1960s to the early 2000s, and
they  note  that  the  United  States  once  opposed  the 
intervention of the Navajos in that litigation.  See Response 
of United States to Motion of Navajo Tribe To Intervene in 
Arizona v. California, O. T. 1961, No. 8, Orig.  The Navajos
point to the United States’s opposition as evidence that the
United  States  has  control  over  the  reserved  water  rights. 
According  to  the  Navajos,  the  United  States’s  purported
control  supports  their  view  that  the  United  States  owes 
trust duties to the Navajos.  But the “Federal Government’s 
liability” on a breach-of-trust claim “cannot be premised on 
control alone.”  United States v. Navajo Nation, 556 U. S. 
287,  301  (2009).    Again,  the  Federal  Government  must
“expressly  accep[t]”  trust  responsibilities  in  a  treaty,
statute,  or  regulation  that  contains  “rights-creating  or 
duty-imposing” language.  United States v. Jicarilla Apache 
Nation, 564 U. S. 162, 177 (2011); United States v. Navajo 
Nation,  537  U. S.  488,  506  (2003).    The  Navajos  have  not 
identified  anything  of  the  sort.    In  addition,  the  Navajos
may  be  able  to  assert  the  interests  they  claim  in  water
rights litigation, including by seeking to intervene in cases 
that  affect  their  claimed  interests,  and  courts  will  then 
assess the Navajos’ claims and motions as appropriate.  See 
28 U. S. C. §1362; Arizona v. California, 460 U. S. 605, 615 
(1983); see also Blatchford v. Native Village of Noatak, 501 
U. S.  775,  784  (1991);  Moe  v.  Confederated  Salish  and 
Kootenai  Tribes  of  Flathead  Reservation,  425  U. S.  463, 
472–474 (1976).3 

—————— 

3 Similarly, the Navajos argue that the United States’s control over the
Colorado River “drives home the duty to secure water.”  Brief for Navajo