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).[1]
- ↑ Similarly, the Navajos argue that the United States’s control over the Colorado River “drives home the duty to secure water.” Brief for Navajo
