How? If you enter into a contract with them, it has to be litigated in their tribal court. Who do you think is going to win? The chief sits on the court as the judge and jury.
> Isn't it possible (and typical) for contracts to specify a particular forum for dispute resolution?
Tribes are sovereign under U.S. law. In most cases when you sign a contract with a tribe (or under tribal law), the tribe is free to modify it ex post facto.
Looks like they learned this from the US government, which signed a series of treaties with the various Indian groups in the 1800s and then ignored the treaties.
> they learned this from the US government, which signed a series of treaties with the various Indian groups in the 1800s and then ignored the treaties
No, the New World figured out empires, exploitation and abrogration of treaty obligations all on its own. The Maya are notorious. But there is a reason even e.g. the Navajo call the ancestral Puebloans the Anasazi [1].
The USA is really on another level than many other nations in its lack of respect for treaties, at least in modern times. Anyone who signs an agreement with the USA should really expect at most 3-4 years of validity, depending where in the election cycle it was signed.
Not really, unless there is some higher jurisdiction that can assert power over both parties. Maybe america can do that to the tribal nations, but no one wants go near that quagmire, unless there were huge issues at stake like the survival of the country or something of that magnitude.