In Memoriam: Dr. Rudolph C. Rÿser, Founding Chair, CWIS

Dr. Rudolph Carl Rÿser was born in Elma, Washington, in 1946 to Ruth Gilham and Ernst Ryser as the youngest of eight children in Chehalis territory and with an extended family of twenty-two in the Obi family of the Quileute Tribe. He grew up in Ocean City, a town of 150 people just south of the Quinault Indian Reservation. He grew to maturity in the Cowlitz Indian culture on the US Pacific Northwest coast and is of Cree/Oneida descent on his mother’s side and German-Swiss descent on his father’s. He is Bear Clan.

He is survived by his wife and colleague of thirty years, Leslie Korn; his sons Christian, Jon, and Morgan; granddaughters, Anastasia Ryser and Aliyah Ryser; sisters April, Betty, Marge, and Barb; and numerous loving nephews, nieces, friends and colleagues.

Rudy was loved by all who knew him: a warm, loving, and generous spirit who gave his time and knowledge to help anyone who asked. He was a philosopher, author, educator, musician, and inventive chef. Rudy was a humble person who practiced servant leadership to support individual and indigenous peoples’ self-determination. He offered strategies and ideas to advance social justice that were often decades ahead of their time. He always worked collaboratively to support others without seeking any personal gain or limelight, save social change in service to indigenous self-determination.

For more than fifty years, he worked in Indian Affairs domestically and internationally. He began his career as economic development director at the Quileute tribe. He later served as a specialist on U.S. government federal administration of Indian Affairs on the American Indian Policy Review Commission (A joint U.S. Senate/House Commission established to study U.S. and tribal policies). He authored the Federal Administration Task Force Report issued to the Commission in 1976.

He was the Executive Director for the Small Tribes Organization of Western Washington, established by twenty-three tribes to support recognition, community development, and organization. In 1979, he began serving as the Special Assistant to the World Council of Indigenous Peoples President George Manuel. He was appointed Acting Director for the National Congress of American Indians in 1983.

Rudy was a senior policy advisor and speech writer to numerous tribal leaders in the Pacific Northwest. He worked closely with his Yakama Taidnapum brother, Dr. Kiaux (Russell Jim), on the Nuclear Waste disposal project in Yakama Territory. He conceived of and developed the strategy for tribal self-government and, together with Joe DeLaCruz, President of the Quinault Nation, provided the genesis for tribal “government to government” relations with the United States government.

In 1979, in response to a call from tribal governments in the Pacific Northwest, Rudy and Chief George Manuel founded the Center for World Indigenous Studies, incorporated in 1982 as a non-profit 501 (c) 3 think-tank of activist scholars where for over 40 years he served as board chair, executive director, and editor of the Fourth World Journal.

From 1987-1990 Rudy chaired the Puget Sound Task Force on Human Rights convening on hate crimes committed against African Americans, Asians, Jews, American Indians, Women and the LGBTQI community.

Dr. Ryser is widely recognized worldwide for the development and application of the field of Fourth World Geopolitics and is the author of the seminal book Indigenous Nations and Modern States: The Political Emergence of Nations Challenging State Power (2012). As an author and scholar, he published and edited numerous books, monographs, encyclopedia articles, and papers in law and policy journals and helped his students and mentees publish.  

At the time of his death, he was participating in a documentary series called Pathfinder: The Untold Story of the Indian Business, which tells about the Indigenous self-determination movement since 1950, and he was writing a book about his grandmother and grandfather’s ancestors who had also been translators and treaty makers in the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, following contact by settler-colonists. 

Rudy contributed to policies and laws affecting American Indians and indigenous peoples internationally, contributing for more than 25 years to developing the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), the U.N. World Conference on Indigenous Peoples. Following UNDRIP, he established the International Covenant on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to address UNDRIP limitations. The ICRIN has been ratified by numerous Indigenous nations worldwide. 

At the time of his passing, Rudy was engaged in establishing and applying protocols and procedures for the accountability of UNDRIP statutes. His work established an accountability framework for Free, Prior, and Informed Consent. His environmental work included leading an indigenous peoples working group contributing to the United Nations’ Convention on Biological Diversity’s Conference of the Parties, as well as addressing efforts to stop extractive industries on Indigenous peoples’ territories.

His work internationally began in the 1980s when he worked with the peace negotiations team to protect the Miskito, Suma, and Rama peoples during the Nicaraguan War and actively engaged North American Indigenous communities in global self-determination efforts.  He traveled to Ghana to support traditional healers for the AIDS epidemic, helped Biafra establish their government in exile and worked for several years to help establish the Ezidikhan government. He worked directly with First Nations communities in Canada to help them protect their land rights and resources and with Aboriginal peoples in Australia. His most recent work was collaboratively establishing the Nations International Criminal Tribunal and coordinating agreements between Indigenous nations and state governments to address war crimes against Indigenous peoples.

Beginning in the 1980s, Rudy worked with undercover researchers to document the rise of the Anti-Indian movement on Indian reservations. He was a gifted prognosticator, identifying the downfall of the Soviet Union two years prior and predicting the rise of the far-right nationalist movement taking hold in the US Congress 40 years in advance. He had a keen, extensive knowledge of the complexity of world geographical and political dynamics.

Rudy was a natural educator: he taught at numerous universities and colleges. He was known as the teacher’s teacher — for his eloquent speech giving and his commitment to mentoring students as future leaders and activist scholars. He was an Indigenous foods chef specializing in authentic cultural cuisines, authoring the book, Salish Country Cookbook.

Rudy attended Washington State University on a full scholarship from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War. He received the 43rd Annual Human Rights Award, United Nations Association in 1986.

He received his PhD. in International Relations in 1996 from the Union Institute and University, where in 2020, he received the Distinguished Alumni Award. He was nominated for the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order and was a 2012 Fulbright Research Scholar for the Contribution of Indigenous Knowledge Systems of West Mexico to Food Security and Adaptation to Climate Change.

For more information about Dr. Rudolph Ryser, to share your memories and stories, or to be in touch, please see the contact page on www.cwis.org.