American Indian Law Alliance

Tonya Gonnella Frichner, Onondaga, Snipe Clan

President and Founder of the American Indian Law Alliance

North American Regional Representative to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

Legal Advisor and Board Member for the Iroquois Nationals Lacrosse Team

Tonya Gonnella Frichner is a lawyer and activist whose academic and professional life has been devoted to the pursuit of human rights for Indigenous peoples. Ms. Frichner earned a Bachelor of Science Degree, and her Juris Doctor from the City of New York Law School at Queens College, where she is a member of the Board of Visitors. She also sits on the Board of Directors for the Iroquois Nationals Lacrosse Team and serves as their legal advisor.

In 1987, shortly after graduation from law school, she served as a delegate for and was legal counsel to the Haudenosaunee at the UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights/Working Group on Indigenous Populations in Geneva, Switzerland. Since that time, Ms. Frichner has been an active participant and legal and diplomatic counsel to Indigenous delegations in virtually all United Nations international forums affecting Indigenous peoples.

She has worked most closely with elders from the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the Lakota Nation. Her work at the American Indian Law Alliance is known by others to be principled, effective and transparent, thus facilitating collaborations with other groups and nations based on shared traditional values. She has considerable experience in the process of the establishment of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and in the negotiation process concerning the draft UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Organization of American States Proposed American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

For her work with Indigenous peoples, Ms. Frichner has been honored with the Spirit Award for International Service from American Indian Community House, Inc, the Harriet Tubman Humanitarian Achievement Award, the Female Role Model of the Year of the Ms. Foundation for Women, the Thunderbird Indian of the Year Award, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor and the NY County Lawyers Association Award for Outstanding Public Service and the Alston Bannerman Award, among others. She sits on several boards, including the Roundtable of Institutions of People of Color and the Seventh Generation Fund for Indian Development.

Selected Conferences Ms. Frichner attended:

2008 Commission on Sustainable Development and preparatory meetings

2002 Beijing +5 – Women: Gender Equality, Development and Peace for the Twenty-First Century and preparatory meetings

2002 Earth Summit, Rio+10 and preparatory meetings

2002 Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat 1) and preparatory meetings

2001 World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance and preparatory meetings

1993 World Conference on Human Rights and preparatory meetings

1992 Convention on Biological Diversity and preparatory meetings

1992 Earth Summit, and preparatory meetings

Other Achievements:

Vice-Chairperson of the Board of Directors for the Seventh Generation Fund for Indian Development

Founding Board Member of The Ingrid Washinawatok El Issa Flying Eagle Woman Fund for Peace, Justice and Sovereignty

Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the Fund for the Four Directions

Board of Directors: City University of New York School of Law; Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Non-proliferation; Native American Council of New York; National Ethnic Coalition for Organizations and others

Member of the Boarding School Healing Project

 

Emily Pavelle
International Program Associate
Emily Pavelle holds a Master of Arts degree in the Social Sciences from the University of Chicago and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology from Colby College in Waterville, Maine. Ms. Pavelle has worked for the American Indian Law Alliance since December 2008.

June Lorenzo

International Legal Adviser

Steve Newcomb
International Research Coordinator

Steven Newcomb (Shawnee/Lenape) is co-founder and co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute, and author of the book “Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery” (Fulcrum, 2008), and a columnist for the weekly newspaper Indian Country Today, since 2002. Mr. Newcomb has spent more than two decades researching and writing about the history of U.S. federal Indian law and international law dating back to the days of Western Christendom. He has law review articles published at N.Y.U. Law School and the University of California at Los Angeles, and self-published the pamphlet “Pagans in the Promised Land: A Matter of Religious Freedom” in 1992. In his capacity as co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute—an organization he founded with Birgil Kills Straight (Oglala Lakota)—Newcomb has worked with American Indian nations such as the Western Shoshone National Council, the Oglala Lakota Nation, the Nuxak, the Li’wt, and the Haudenosaunee. He was the principal author of the “Preliminary Study of the Impact on Indigenous Peoples of the International Legal Construct Known as the Doctrine of Discovery” submitted by Ms. Tonya Gonnella Frichner to the 9th Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in her capacity as the North American Regional Representative to the UN Permanent Forum. Newcomb has been a national and international speaker on American Indian issues since the early 1990’s.

Board of Directors

 

Joanna O. Bigfeather(Western Cherokee/Mescalero Apache) is an internationally recognized artist and curator.

Curtis Harris(San Carlos Apache) is the founder of the HIV/AIDS Project at the American Indian Community House, where he is now an active board member.

Chief Oren Lyons (Onondaga Nation) is Faithkeeper, Grand Council of Chiefs of the Haudenosaunee; an international activist for Native sovereignty; and Director of the Native Studies Program, SUNY Buffalo.

Sammy Toineeta (Lakota Nation) is the Acting Director for American Indian Relations for the United Church of Christ and is a community activist.

Tonya Gonnella Frichner(Onondaga Nation) is the President and Founder of the American Indian Law Alliance. She is an attorney, activist and recipient of numerous awards for community service, as well as an adjunct professor of Native American Law. She is also the North American Regional Representative to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Maxine Nolan Gonnella(Onondaga Nation) 1929-2003, Emeritus, served the American Indian Law Alliance since its inception and was one of the mentors and leaders upon whom we depend for guidance.

Herb Frichner, Treasurer, is a New York City businessman and is an adjunct Associate Professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology.