Arizona v. Navajo Nation
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the 1868 treaty establishing the Navajo Reservation did not require the federal government to take affirmative steps to find and secure water for the Tribe, reversing a lower court ruling that had allowed the Navajo Nation's lawsuit to proceed.
The decision means the Navajo Nation — whose members use a fraction of the water the average American household does, with some areas lacking reliable water access entirely — must look to Congress and the White House, rather than the courts, to address their ongoing water shortage.
How it got here: The federal district court dismissed the Navajo Nation's complaint; the Ninth Circuit reversed, finding the 1868 treaty imposed a duty to take affirmative steps to secure water; the Supreme Court granted certiorari and reversed.
The Case in Depth
What happened
The Navajo Nation — with over 300,000 enrolled members and a 17-million-acre reservation roughly the size of West Virginia — filed suit against the U.S. Department of the Interior and related agencies. The Tribe argued that the 1868 peace treaty, which ended decades of violent conflict and established the Navajo Reservation on their original homeland, obligated the federal government to assess their water needs, develop a water-access plan, and potentially build pipelines and other infrastructure. The States of Arizona, Nevada, and Colorado intervened to protect their own interests in Colorado River water.
The question before the Court
Did the 1868 peace treaty between the United States and the Navajo Nation require the federal government to take active steps — such as assessing water needs and building water infrastructure — to secure water for the Tribe?
The Court's answer
No — the 1868 treaty did not require the United States to take affirmative steps to secure water for the Navajo Nation. The treaty established a reservation and implicitly reserved water rights needed to make the land livable, but it contained no language specifically imposing a duty on the government to assess water needs, develop a water plan, or build infrastructure. To succeed on a breach-of-trust claim, the Tribe needed to point to specific "rights-creating or duty-imposing" language in the treaty — and none existed regarding water.
The Court rejected the Tribe's supporting arguments: the reservation's designation as a "permanent home" creates no water-securing obligation, and the treaty's requirement to provide seeds and farm tools demonstrates only that the parties knew how to write specific affirmative duties when they wanted to. Updating a 155-year-old treaty to meet modern water demands, the Court held, is a task for Congress and the President — not federal courts.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Members of the Navajo Nation cannot use the courts to compel the federal government to assess or actively secure their water rights under the 1868 treaty. The nation's largest reservation, where some communities lack basic running water, now depends on Congress passing new legislation or the executive branch choosing to act. The ruling also signals that courts will not read affirmative obligations into Indian treaties that the treaty text does not expressly state.
What changes now
The Ninth Circuit's ruling is reversed, and the Navajo Nation's breach-of-trust lawsuit seeking affirmative water-securing measures is dismissed. The Tribe may pursue other avenues: the Court noted the Navajo may still seek to intervene in Colorado River water-rights litigation to assert their claims directly, and could bring claims alleging direct interference with water rights they already possess. Any broader solution to the Tribe's water needs would require action by Congress or the executive branch.
What this does not decide
The ruling does not determine the scope of the Navajo Nation's existing water rights under the Winters doctrine, nor does it bar the Tribe from asserting those rights in water-allocation litigation or bringing claims that the government has directly interfered with water they already possess. Those questions remain open.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas joined the majority in full but wrote separately to flag what he sees as a deeper problem: the Court's repeated invocation of a general 'trust relationship' between the United States and Indian tribes. He argues this concept lacks constitutional or historical foundation, has blurred the line between political-branch moral obligations and court-enforceable legal duties, and has questionably fed into both pro-Indian canons of statutory interpretation and the doctrine of broad congressional power over Indian affairs. He urges the Court to clarify or cabin this language in future cases.
Dissent — Justice Gorsuch
“Today, the Court rejects a request the Navajo Nation never made.”Justice Gorsuch's opening line, arguing the majority misread what the Tribe actually sought.
Justice Gorsuch, joined by three colleagues, argues the majority rejected a request the Navajo never made. The Tribe did not ask for pipelines or infrastructure — it simply asked the government to assess what water rights it already holds in trust for them and to stop any misappropriation. He argues the majority applies the wrong legal framework (one designed for money-damages cases, not equitable treaty claims), and that because the United States admits it holds Navajo water rights in trust and exercises vast control over the Colorado River, a basic duty to account for those rights plainly follows. He would have allowed the lawsuit to proceed.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- To bring a breach-of-trust claim against the federal government, a tribe must show that a treaty, statute, or regulation contains specific 'rights-creating or duty-imposing' language expressly accepting the claimed obligation. The government owes legally enforceable duties to tribes only to the extent it expressly accepts them — this rule flows from separation-of-powers principles, since Congress and the President, not courts, organize the government's relationship with Indian tribes.
- The 1868 treaty set apart a reservation for the Navajo's 'use and occupation' and, under the long-standing Winters doctrine — which holds that reservation-creating treaties implicitly reserve the water needed to make the land usable — includes reserved water rights. But the treaty text contained no language imposing an affirmative duty on the United States to secure water. In contrast, the treaty did spell out specific duties (building schools, providing teachers, supplying seeds), which showed the parties knew how to impose explicit obligations when they chose to.
- The Tribe's alternative arguments each failed. Calling the reservation a 'permanent home' is not the same as promising to affirmatively provide water; the seed-and-implements provision implies nothing about water beyond the three-year supply period; and the government's general control over Colorado River water cannot by itself create a legally enforceable trust duty — government liability on a breach-of-trust claim 'cannot be premised on control alone.'
- The Court also declined to apply common-law trust principles to infer broader duties from the general trust relationship between the United States and Indian tribes. Unless Congress has created a specific, conventional trust relationship for a particular asset, courts will not expand treaty obligations beyond their written terms. The 1868 treaty created no such specific trust relationship with respect to water.
- Finally, the Court emphasized the stakes of overreaching: allocating water in the arid American West is a zero-sum problem where every court-ordered claim for one party reduces what is available to others. That reality makes it especially important for courts to stay within the treaty's text and leave water policy choices to Congress and the executive branch, who can weigh competing modern demands.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Winters v. United States (207 U.S. 564)
Reserved water rights for Indian reservations still exist; the treaty just imposes no affirmative duty to secure them.
Reaffirms United States v. Jicarilla Apache Nation (564 U.S. 162)
Courts may only enforce trust duties the government expressly accepted in treaty, statute, or regulation.
Reaffirms United States v. Navajo Nation (537 U.S. 488)
Breach-of-trust claims must rest on specific rights-creating or duty-imposing language in positive law.