Page:Arizona v. Navajo Nation.pdf/12

Rh expanded beyond their clear terms.” Choctaw Nation v. United States, 318 U. S. 423, 432 (1943); cf. Jicarilla, 564 U. S., at 173–174, 177–178; Navajo Nation, 537 U. S., at 506–507; Mitchell, 445 U. S., at 542, 546. So it is here.

Moreover, it would be anomalous to conclude that the United States must take affirmative steps to secure water given that the United States has no similar duty with respect to the land on the reservation. For example, under the treaty, the United States has no duty to farm the land, mine the minerals, or harvest the timber on the reservation—or, for that matter, to build roads and bridges on the reservation. Cf. id., at 542–543. Just as there is no such duty with respect to the land, there likewise is no such duty with respect to the water.

To be sure, this Court’s precedents have stated that the United States maintains a general trust relationship with Indian tribes, including the Navajos. Jicarilla, 564 U. S., at 176. But as the Solicitor General explains, the United States is a sovereign, not a private trustee, meaning that “Congress may style its relations with the Indians a trust without assuming all the fiduciary duties of a private trustee, creating a trust relationship that is limited or bare compared to a trust relationship between private parties at common law.” Id., at 174 (internal quotation marks omitted). Therefore, unless Congress has created a conventional trust relationship with a tribe as to a particular trust asset, this Court will not “apply common-law trust principles” to infer duties not found in the text of a treaty, statute, or regulation. Id., at 178. Here, nothing in the 1868 treaty establishes a conventional trust relationship with respect to water.

In short, the 1868 treaty did not impose a duty on the United States to take affirmative steps to secure water for the Tribe—including the steps requested by the Navajos here, such as determining the water needs of the Tribe, providing an accounting, or developing a plan to secure the