20
Opinion of the Court
Although the claim may well require consideration of individual contracts and compliance with the Reclamation and Warren Acts, it does not follow (as Nebraska and the United States argue) that Wyoming is asserting the private contractors' rights proper, or (as the United States contends) that Wyoming brings suit " 'in reality for the benefit of particular individuals,' " Brief for United States in Support of Exception 25, quoting Oklahoma ex rel. Johnson v. Cook, 304 U. S. 387, 393-394 (1938). Wyoming argues only that the cumulative effect of the United States's failure to adhere to the law governing the contracts undermines the operation of the decree, see Response Brief 14-21, and thereby states a claim arising under the decree itself, one by which it seeks to vindicate its " 'quasi-sovereign' interests which are 'independent of and behind the titles of its citizens, in all the earth and air within its domain,' " Oklahoma ex rel. Johnson v. Cook, supra, at 393, quoting Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Co., 206 U. S. 230, 237 (1907).
It is of no moment that some of the contracts could be made (or are) the subject of litigation between individual contract holders and the United States in federal district court. Wyoming is not a party to any such litigation and, as
is not included in it, yet it cannot seek modification of the decree to include such a mandate, apparently because such relief is not sufficiently drastic. Post, at 24-26.
It seems very clear to us, however, that Wyoming is seeking a modification of the decree in order to enforce its predicate. As the dissent concedes, our 1945 decision could conceivably afford a "basis for ordering the United States to comply with applicable riparian law and with its storage contracts . . . ." Post, at 25-26. The dissent then rightly points out that such a position would be weak because the decree did not expressly mandate the compliance with lawful contracts and governing law that we anticipated in 1945. Ibid. Wyoming's Fourth Cross-Claim, however, now seeks just such a mandate by modifying the decree to require the United States to comply with its own contracts and with the federal and state law governing storage water.
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