Nation v. U.S. Department of the Interior

Congress mandated that the National Park Service (Park Service) follow a process for identifying which tribes are entitled to receive the human remains and *1096archeological artifacts removed from the Canyon de Chelly. That process, codified in the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), provides for repatriation of human remains and associated artifacts to their known descendants. See 25 U.S.C. §§ 3001-3013. The Park Service is slowly implementing the NAGPRA process with respect to the human remains and artifacts in its possession. Its snaillike progress is in part…