The Future of Indigenous Self-Governance & Self-Determination

A Conversation with
Hon. Oren Lyons (Onondaga)
Chief & Faithkeeper, Onondaga Indian Nation
Chairman Emeritus, Harvard’s Honoring Nations Board of Governors
Hon. Joe Williams (Ngati Pukenga, Waitaha, Tapuika)
Justice, New Zealand Court of Appeal

Angela R. Riley (Citizen Potawatomi Nation)
Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law
HLS '98
Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould (We Wai Kai Nation)
Minister of Justice & Attorney General, Member of Parliament, Canada
Prof. Joseph Kalt (Moderator)
Ford Foundation Professor (Emeritus) of International Political Economy, HKS
Co-Director, Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development

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Hon. Oren Lyons (Onondaga) 
Chief & Faithkeeper, Onondaga Indian Nation 
Chairman Emeritus, Harvard’s Honoring Nations Board of Governors 
Oren Lyons is a faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan, Onondaga Council of Chiefs, Haudenosaunee (Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy). He has been active in international Indigenous rights and sovereignty issues for over four decades at the United Nations and other international forums. He is a State University of New York (SUNY) distinguished services professor emeritus of the University at Buffalo. 
Chief Lyons co-founded the Traditional Circle of Indian Elders and Youth with the American Indian Institute at Bozeman, Montana, and continues to serve on their board. He also co-founded the Iroquois Nationals Lacrosse program in 1983 and is chairman of their board of directors. He is chairman emeritus of the board of directors of Honoring Nations, the national best practices awards and dissemination program of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. Chief Lyons serves on the board of Bioneers, an environmental champion of the earth. He is chairman of the board of directors of Plantagon International AB, the leader in urban agriculture; Plantagon is designed to meet challenges of compounding human population, finite resources and global warming.

Hon. Joe Williams (Ngati Pukenga, Waitaha, Tapuika)
Justice, New Zealand Court of Appeal 
Justice Joe Williams was appointed a permanent Judge of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand in February 2018. 
He graduated from Victoria University with an LLB in 1986 and from the University of British Columbia, Canada, with an LLM (Hons) in 1988.  He then joined, and later became a partner of the law firm Kensington Swan.
After practising as a partner of Walters Williams & Co between 1994 and 1999, Justice Williams was appointed Chief Judge, Maori Land Court in December 1999.  Shortly thereafter he was appointed as Deputy Chairperson of the Waitangi Tribunal and appointed the Chairperson of the Waitangi Tribunal in 2004.  He was made a Judge of the High Court of New Zealand on 10 September 2008.
He is a fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, a fellow of the Law Faculty at Victoria University of Wellington, an Honorary Lecturer, Faculty of Law at Waikato University and an adjunct professor at the Ngāi Tahu Research Centre at Canterbury University.  His tribal affiliations are Ngati Pukenga and Te Arawa (Waitaha, Tapuika).
 

Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould (We Wai Kai Nation) 
Minister of Justice & Attorney General, Member of Parliament, Canada 
Jody Wilson-Raybould is a lawyer, advocate, and leader among British Columbia’s First Nations. She was sworn in as Minister of Justice of Canada on November 4, 2015.  After being called to the Bar in 2000, Minister Wilson-Raybould began her legal career working as a provincial crown prosecutor in Vancouver. She later served as an advisor at the BC Treaty Commission, a body established to oversee treaty negotiations between First Nations and the Crown. In 2004, Minister Wilson-Raybould was elected as Commissioner by the Chiefs of the First Nations Summit. 
Upon being elected Regional Chief of the BC Assembly of First Nations in 2009, Minister Wilson-Raybould has devoted herself to the advancement of First Nations governance, fair access to land and resources, as well as improved education and health care services. She was re-elected as Regional Chief in 2012 and held responsibilities for governance and nation building on the Assembly of First Nations Executive. She has previously been involved with the Chiefs Committee on Claims and chaired the Comprehensive Claims joint working group. 
An active volunteer in her community, Minister Wilson-Raybould has served as a Director for Capilano College, the Minerva Foundation for BC Women, the Nuyumbalees Cultural Centre, and the National Centre for First Nations Governance. She was also a director on the First Nations Lands Advisory Board and Chair of the First Nations Finance Authority. She is the recipient of the alumni award from the Minerva Foundation and the University of Victoria. 
Minister Wilson-Raybould is a descendant of the Musgamagw Tsawataineuk and Laich-Kwil-Tach peoples, which are part of the Kwakwaka’wakw and also known as the Kwak’wala speaking peoples. She is a citizen of the We Wai Kai Nation and is married to Dr. Tim Raybould.

Prof. Joseph Kalt (Moderator) 
Ford Foundation Professor (Emeritus) of International Political Economy, HKS 
Co-Director, Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development 
Prof. Kalt joined the faculty at Harvard in 1978 and is a specialist in the economics of industrial organization, antitrust, economic development, government regulation and taxation.  He is widely recognized for his work in economic development on American Indian reservations and among First Nations in Canada.  In 1987, he founded (with Stephen Cornell) the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development.  He continues to serve as the Project’s co-director and is a principal author of The State of the Native Nations:  Conditions under U.S. Policies of Self-Determination (with the Harvard Project), co-editor and a primary author of What Can Tribes Do? Strategies and Institutions in the Economic Development of American Indian Reservations (with Stephen Cornell), a principal author of Rebuilding Native Nations:  Strategies for Governance and Development (ed. M. Jorgensen), and co-editor of Universities and Indian Country (with Dennis Norman). 
In 2005, Professor Kalt received the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development’s First American Leadership Award for his research on public policy affecting Native peoples.  In 2010, he and Professor Cornell received the National Congress of American Indians’ award for Public Sector Leadership.  
Professor Kalt is a member of the Board of Directors of the Native Governance Center and chairs the Board of Directors of the White Mountain Apache Tribe’s Fort Apache Heritage Foundation, Inc.  He has also served as vice-chair of the Board of Directors of the Sonoran Institute, and is a member of the Board of Advisors of the National Institute for Civil Discourse, the Navajo Nation’s President’s Council of Economic Advisors, and the Advisory Board of the Chickasaw Nation’s Community Development Enterprise.   
A native of Tucson, Arizona, Professor Kalt received his Ph.D. (1980) and M.A. (1977) in Economics from the University of California at Los Angeles, and his B.A. (1973) in Economics from Stanford University.