Bruce Horowitz

Cross-cultural Economics and Indigenous Business Understanding

At Brandeis University, I majored in History. In particular, I studied comparative Land Use History between England and Russia, as well as the Economics of Development in Latin America, and applied that to economic systems that I was seeing side-by-side between Indigenous Shuar families and Mestizo settler families in the Ecuadorian Amazon. This included their separate, but not dissimilar reactions to government-sponsored support for Cooperative economic forms of business.

In Alaska, I worked with Alaska Native individuals and communities on their Constitutional and Legal rights in the areas of Housing, Subsistence Hunting, Native Adoptions, Rights to education up through highschool in their own villages, rather than being sent to schools in other States after elementary school, Limited Entry Fishing Rights, Cultural Rights, Indigenous Family Law, Land Rights.

Indigenous Business interests. Following the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, I was in charge of the first televised public service spots for Alaska Natives on their Shareholder rights and obligations in their Regional and Village rights and obligations. Later work in Ecuador as liaise between Alaska Native Regional Corporations and Ecuadorian Indigenous business group that was in the process of purchasing a construction material mining and processing company.

Work in Compliance, Anti-corruption and Anti-extortion.

US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act 1986-Present. Seminars at the major universities in Ecuador, and the International Anti-corruption Academy in Austria and Argentina, at Ohio Northern University to Foreign M.A. student, numerous training for American Bar Association Anticorruption Co-Chair. Presentations to staff at the World Bank, the InternAmerican Development Bank, State Capitals Law Firm Group, ABA, IBA, lAnti-corruption Compliance; Anti-Extortion Professor de clases universitarias (Austria/USA/ Ecuador/ Argentina). Trainer and guide for clients and communities for the Application of Positive Deviance Approach to Extortion Situations faced individuals and communities from rural villages for lawyers, peace officers, court officials, to ship captains, engineers, auditor, students and teachers, etc.

1970-1973 Land surveyor and Legal work for Indigenous Nations and Communities in Ecuador Amazon Basin (1970-1973, 2024-25 and in Alaska (1974-1983) including Alaska Native Land Rights, and Rights to Free Prior Informed Consent litigation against Alaskan Offshore Oil Drilling (1982-1985).

Negotiation Theory and Practice. Environmental Credits projects and processes for Indigenous forest protection and reforestation. 2024-present.

Publications and Training professional, technical, community and others in successful, ethical and safe negotiations in Government Functionary Extortion situations 1989-present. Co-wrote, co-produced, co-directed, sound and music for the Shuar Indigenous film (Tuná Chichame 1973 (Shuar Language), and La Voz de la Cascada (Spanish), The Sound of Rushing Water (1974). Named Fellow of World Commerce and Contracting. First President of the International Chamber of Commerce Anti-corruption and Integrity Commission, and led the first public “Honestidad Criollo” Campaign. 2022-3 American Bar Association International Lifetime Achievement Award. Arbitrator for the Arbitration Centers of the Quito Chamber of Commerce and the Ecuador-US Chamber of Commerce.

Participated in the Amazon Basin Shuar community studies for the breakthrough Human Ecology book by Human Ecology Prof. Tom Rudel on Tropical Deforestation (1993), and participated in some of the follow-up studies since then. Co-founded and managed the Law Office of Paz Horowitz for 22 years, and the opening up of the first fully International Law Firm in Ecuador, Dentons.

In 1974-1976). Successful Legal Research Project and analysis to help Alaska Natives to prove their rights to land under the previously forgotten Alaska Native Land Allotment Act of 1906 Legal representation, that turned a 98% denial rate before then to a 95% granting rate afterward. 1974-1984. From 1976 to 1983, I represented Alaska Natives on Alaska Native Cultural Rights, Limited Entry Fishing, Rights to have schooling and high schools in every requesting Alaska Native Village (my task was at the end of the project to confirm that all the projects had been successfully completed). I also worked on Senior Citizen Rights, Rights of the Philipino Community in Southeast Alaska, Protection against Discrimination of Gay and Lesbian People, Rights of the Hearing Impaired, and I produced and directed the first TV spots for the learning and understanding of Corporate Shareholder Rights and Responsibilities of Alaska Natives under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. As the Executive Director of the Ohio State Legal Services Association from 1983 – 1985, I was in charge of 3 separate Legal Services Programs for people who could not afford legal representation, at theOhio Southeast Appalachian region directly for legal services; and the State of Ohio Level for the Training of Legal Services Attorneys and Staff and Clients throughout the State; and one of the earliest on-line Legal Research programs to handle hard-to-find on-line legal research information for Legal Services Attorneys in the 7 surround States. Finally, I arrived at the Ohio State Legal Services Association after a 3 or 4 years’-long legal union battle. And so I learned about negotiating previously unheard of and untested Law Firm Union contracts, while the entire organization faced potential bankruptcy. All it took was being honest with all sides. So far, I have been able to apply that lesson to all negotiations, including negotiations with opposing parties and with government functionary extortionists.

Bilingual in Spanish and English: Legal, business, and informal English and Spanish speaking, writing all of my adult life.

Shuar: Learned and spoke Shuar-chicham, between 1970 and 1973, I lived with a Shuar family, and trained and worked with local Shuar land survey crews in 20 Shuar communities.