The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (ICHR), a body of the Organization of American States (OAS), recently released a report concluding that the United States government is violating international human rights laws in the case of Mary and Carrie Dann, two Western Shoshone Indians. The core of the dispute isthe legal status of land in Nevada which the Western Shoshone Indians claim as part of their ancestral territory. The government maintains this land belongs to the public, and charges fees to the Shoshone for grazing their cattle on it. According to the Indian Law Resource Center, “The ICHR found that the claims process, which the U.S. says extinguished the Western Shoshone rights to most of their land in Nevada, was a flawed process that denied the Danns and other Western Shoshones their human rights.” This is the first time the ICHR has ruled that the U.S. has violated the fundamental rights of American Indians.
