The first of four symposiums at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa campus featuring attorney and Hawaiian activist Mililani Trask will take place from 4:30 to 8 p.m. today at Halau o Haumea of the Kamaka-kuokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies.

Trask, who has been working for more than a decade at the international level for Hawaiian and indigenous rights, will speak tomorrow on the Akaka bill, ongoing court challenges involving Native Hawaiian rights and institutions, and developments at the United Nations.

From 4:30 to 8 p.m. March 9, at Classroom 2 of the William S. Richardson School of Law, Trask will speak on the history of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, its current status and the objections of the United States and other states.

From 2:30 to 4 p.m. March 16, at Saunders Hall Room 624, she will speak on racism in United States jurisprudence and she will examine U.S. domestic case law dealing with people of color and Native Americans.

The final session takes place from 4:30 to 8 p.m. April 4 at Halau o Haumea and will focus on the history of Hawai'i before the U.N. Trask will look at recently filed briefs under the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights, to which the United States is a signatory, and claims advanced by Hawaiians and Alaska Natives against the United States.

In 2001, Trask was nominated and appointed by the president of the Economic Social Council of the U.N. as Pacific representative to the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.