Abstract
In 1982, Alaska’s twelve regional Native corporations finalized and executed a settlement agreement ending a decade of litigation involving Section 7(i) of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. The 121-page Settlement Agreement is complex and covers a number of issues. The Agreement annually governs the distribution of tens of millions in revenue shared between the regional corporations pursuant to Section 7(i). This Article reviews the history of the Settlement Agreement, with emphasis on the negotiations that led to it, as well as the legal challenges regarding the Agreement since its execution. This Article also reviews the Agreement, section-by-section, and provides insight from court cases, arbitration decisions, and other analysis of sections in the Agreement. Finally, this Article recommends that the twelve regions consider amending the Agreement to modernize it and address issues that have arisen since 1982 that were not anticipated by the drafters of the Agreement. This Article is a follow-on to ANCSA Section 7(I): $40 Million Per Word and Counting, which reviewed the history of Section 7(i).
Citation
Ethan G. Schutt & Aaron M. Schutt,
The Grand Compromise: The ANCSA Section 7(i) Settlement Agreement,
34 Alaska Law Review
201-236
(2017)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/alr/vol34/iss2/4