Lindsay Robertson

A.B, Davidson College, 1981

M.A, University of Virginia, 1986

J.D, University of Virginia School of Law, 1986

Ph.D, University of Virginia, 1997

About

Professor Lindsay G. Robertson joined the law faculty in 1997.  He teaches courses in the History of Federal Indian Law and Policy, International Indigenous Peoples Law, and Criminal Jurisdiction in Indian Country, and serves as a justice on the Supreme Court of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes.

Professor Robertson was Private Sector Advisor to the U.S. Department of State delegations to the Working Groups on the U.N. Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2004-06) and the American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2004-07) and from 2010-12 was a member of the U.S Department of State Advisory Committee on International Law.  In 2014, he served as advisor on indigenous peoples law to the Chair of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and he currently serves as Senior Legal Adviser to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.  He has spoken widely on international and comparative indigenous peoples law issues in the United States, Europe, Latin America and Asia and in 2014 was the recipient of the first David L. Boren Award for Outstanding Global Engagement. In 2017, he was awarded the OU Regents' Award for Superior Professional Service and Public Outreach, and in 2022 he received the OU Regents' Award for Superior Teaching.  

Professor Robertson is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and a member of the American Law Institute and the Oklahoma Historical Society Board of Directors. In 2023, he was appointed to a four-year term as one of the 15 members of the National Park System Advisory Board and currently serves as Chair of the NPSAB National Historic Landmarks Committee. He is the author of Conquest by Law (Oxford University Press 2005).