Ocean Iron Fertilization and Indigenous Peoples’ Right to Food: Leveraging International and Domestic Law Protections to Enhance Access to Salmon in the Pacific Northwest

This Article addresses whether indigenous communities like the Haida in the U.S. Pacific Northwest region could assert a legal right to employ an ocean iron fertilization strategy in the future to help restore and maintain a cultural food source that has been depleted in part due to climate change impacts. The Article confirms that international environmental law, international human rights law and federal Indian Law in the United Stales provide a firm foundation for enshrining a legal right to food for federally recognized U.S. tribes in this region. It proposes a potential exception to a future international environmental law treaty framework governing OIF experiments that would protect indigenous communities ‘ rights to enhanced access to salmon as a subsistence and cultural food resource that is essential to self-determination.