James C Hopkins

Associate Clinical Professor, James E. Rodgers College of Law, University of Arizona

James Hopkins is an Associate Clinical Professor at the James E. Rogers College of Law, Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program, University of Arizona. He directs the Rio Yaqui Human Rights Clinic and is counsel pro-bono to the Rio Yaqui Pueblos of Sonora, Mexico. He has advocated on their behalf before numerous international and domestic decision-making bodies and in 2024, he negotiated and settled the largest indigenous human rights case in the history of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). The settlement is the result of almost two decades of work and includes restitution for loss of land, water, the environment, and commits Mexico to $815,000,000.00 US dollars in public expenditures. The agreement emphasizes reconciliation and affirms the water rights of the Yaqui Pueblos to the Rio Yaqui as well as groundwater. Further, it recognizes the reserved right of the Yaqui Pueblos to the electro-magnetic spectrum. Unique to this situation is the addition of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe as a signatory to the settlement agreement. James Hopkins graduated from Harvard Law School’s joint Master of Laws and International Tax program and has an LL.B. from the University of Toronto. He is from a small non-status Algonquin community northwest of Ottawa, Ontario.