Cite as: 520 U. S. 438 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
76 F. 3d 930 (1996). The Court of Appeals concluded that our decision in Montana v. United States, 450 U. S. 544 (1981), was the controlling precedent, and that, under Montana, the Tribal Court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over the dispute.4
We granted certiorari, 518 U. S. 1056 (1996), and now affirm.
II
Our case law establishes that, absent express authorization by federal statute or treaty, tribal jurisdiction over the conduct of nonmembers exists only in limited circumstances. In Oliphant v. Suquamish Tribe, 435 U. S. 191 (1978), the Court held that Indian tribes lack criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians.5 Montana v. United States, decided three years later, is the pathmarking case concerning tribal civil authority over nonmembers. Montana concerned the authority of the Crow Tribe to regulate hunting and fishing by non-Indians on lands within the Tribe's reservation owned in fee simple by non-Indians. The Court said in Montana that the restriction on tribal criminal jurisdiction recognized in Oliphant rested on principles that support a more "general proposition." 450 U. S., at 565. In the main, the Court explained, "the inherent sovereign powers of an Indian tribe"—those powers a tribe enjoys apart from express provision by treaty or statute—"do not extend to the activities
4 Petitioner Fredericks has commenced a similar lawsuit in a North Dakota state court "to protect her rights against the running of the State's six-year statute of limitations." Reply Brief 6, n. 2. Respondents assert that they have answered the complaint and "are prepared to proceed in that forum." Brief for Respondents 8, n. 6. Respondents also note, without contradiction, that the state forum "is physically much closer by road to the accident scene . . . than [is] the tribal courthouse." Ibid.
5 In Duro v. Reina, 495 U. S. 676, 684-685 (1990), we held that Indian tribes also lack criminal jurisdiction over nonmember Indians. Shortly after our decision in Duro, Congress provided for tribal criminal jurisdiction over nonmember Indians. See 25 U. S. C. § 1301(2).
445
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