Kristen Carpenter

On tribal lands in America, four of every five Native American women are victims of violence, and one in two are victims of sexual violence. . . Attorneys Kristen Carpenter and Edyael Casaperalta, both with the American Indian Law Program at the University of Colorado Law School, told audience members...

Under the new policy, the attorney general must get written consent from tribes before taking certain actions that affect them. That's something few have put into practice, experts say. . . Yet federal agencies, as well as countries around the world, have been slow to implement policies to obtain tribes’ consent, even after endorsing the broad language of the U.N.’s 2007 declaration, said Carla Fredericks, director of the American Indian Law Clinic at the University of Colorado Law School. In a 2017 paper, Fredericks wrote that free, prior and informed consent is “currently an emerging norm and seen as an aspirational goal, rather than binding international law.” . . . Kristen Carpenter, a University of Colorado law professor who is a member of the United Nations’ Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, agreed that the policy announced by Washington’s attorney general last month “is much more specific than anything else I’ve seen around the world.” It may very well be the first time a state attorney general has adopted such a policy.

Speaking on behalf of the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP), of which she serves as the North American member and vice chair, Council Tree Professor of Law Kristen Carpenter delivered a statement about indigenous languages to the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Feb. 1.

Professor Kristen Carpenter presented at the National Congress of American Indians' 75th annual Convention and Marketplace, held Oct. 21-26, 2018, in Denver. She participated in the "International Advocacy to Protect Tribal Sovereignty" panel, where she spoke about her work as a member of the U.N.'s Expert Mechanism on the Rights...

Professor Kristen Carpenter and the U.N. Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples met with Michelle Bachelet, president of Chile, on December 7. The meeting was part of the Expert Mechanism’s visit to Santiago to conduct a study on “free, prior, and informed consent” among indigenous peoples, states, and industry as a safeguard for self-determination, land, culture, and other human rights.