WP 26-005: Indigenous Data Sovereignty: From Recognition to Enforcement | Datum Nullius, Tribal Jurisdiction, and Operational Methods for Data Governance Gates

Indigenous data sovereignty is often framed as ethical governance or system design. This article reframes it as a problem of public law: legal institutions recognize Indigenous sovereignty while allocating practical authority over data to agencies, researchers, platforms, and cloud providers. Drawing on federal Indian law, treaty doctrine, privacy law, and institutional analysis, it identifies an enforcement gap between de jure authority and de facto control. The Article develops datum nullius as a legal critique of rules that render Indigenous knowledge administratively available despite collective claims of jurisdiction. It then evaluates three doctrinal and policy mechanisms – tribal law, enforceable agreements, and reviewable data-governance procedures – supported by technical controls only insofar as they implement legal duties. The resulting framework treats OCAP® and CARE not as voluntary ethics alone, but as evidence of Indigenous governance norms capable of informing interpretation, contracting, administration, and remedies. Indigenous data sovereignty therefore becomes a method for translating recognized sovereignty into enforceable institutional authority.

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Keywords: Indigenous data sovereignty, federal Indian law, tribal jurisdiction, datum nullius, data governance, institutional enforcement, collective data rights