The Hawaiian Kingdom is a member State of the Universal Postal Union since January 1, 1882, has forty-six (46) State treaty partners, and, to a limited degree, one hundred twenty-seven (127) successor State quasi-treaty partners. In the Hawaiian Kingdom’s Protest and Demand filed with the President of the United Nations General Assembly on August 10, 2012, the Hawaiian Kingdom’s identification of successor States collectively included former colonial, mandate and trust territories. This identification was made without any prejudice to the particular rights of each successor States in relation to the mode of exercising self-determination when they achieved their independence.

According to Professor Oppenheim, “there is room for the view that in case of separation resulting in the emergence of a new State the latter is bound by—or at least entitled to accede to—general treaties of a ‘law-making’ nature, especially those of a humanitarian character.”Beato explains, “contrary to conventional law’s clean slate doctrine, relatively few newly independent states renounce all of their predecessor state’s treaties. Instead, new states tend to adopt a pragmatic approach which balances issues of self-determination and sovereignty in foreign affairs against the need to foster stability in international relations.” Professor Hershey states that it “is generally agreed that the purely local or personal rights and obligations of the [predecessor State]…remain with the [successor State].” Treaty obligations to private individuals survive the succession and bind the successor State.

Provisions of these treaties not only protect the private rights and obligations of the citizenry of the predecessor States and their successor States while within the territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom, but also protect the private rights and obligations of the citizenry of the Hawaiian Kingdom while within the territories of the predecessor States and their successor States. This rule stems from the principle of international law that change in sovereignty does not affect the private rights of individuals.

An example of successorship is Australia. Under the Hawaiian-British Treaty of 1851, British territory included Australia, which at the time was a Crown colony. On January 1, 1901, Australia was granted independence by Great Britain and was no longer a part of British territory. Australia became a successor State of Great Britain, who is now the predecessor State to Australia. The private rights which British subjects held under the 1851 Hawaiian-British Treaty while within Hawaiian territory would now apply to Australian citizens, and the private rights of Hawaiian subjects held under the Hawaiian-British Treaty would apply when Hawaiian subjects are in Australian territory.

Territorial sovereignty is the independent right of a State to carry out its activities over a territory that has been internationally recognized as belonging to a State. Since the occupation of the Hawaiian Islands by the United States on August 12, 1898, the laws of occupation apply to Hawaiian territory and where the Hawaiian Kingdom exercised its right of territorial sovereignty, the United States would temporarily exercise the Hawaiian right within the limitations imposed by the 1893 Lili`uokalani assignment and the Restoration Agreement, being international compacts, the 1907 Hague Convention, IV, and the 1949 Geneva Convention, IV, and U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10. §6 of the Hawaiian Civil Code states:

“The laws are obligatory upon all persons, whether subjects of this kingdom, or citizens or subjects of any foreign State, while within the limits of this kingdom, except so far as exception is made by the laws of nations in respect to Ambassadors or others.  The property of all such persons, while such property is within the territorial jurisdiction of this kingdom, is also subject to the laws.”

The Islands constituting the defined territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom that was internationally recognized in 1893, together with its territorial seas whereby the channels between adjacent Islands are contiguous, its exclusive economic zone of two hundred miles, and its air space, include:

Island:                   Location:                               Square Miles/Acreage:

Hawai‘i                 19º 30′ N 155º 30′ W             4,028.2 / 2,578,048
Maui                      20º 45′ N 156º 20′ W             727.3 / 465,472
O‘ahu                    21º 30′ N 158º 00′ W             597.1 / 382,144
Kaua‘i                   22º 03′ N 159º 30′ W             552.3 / 353,472
Molokai                 21º 08′ N 157º 00′ W             260.0 / 166,400
Lana‘i                    20º 50′ N 156º 55′ W             140.6 / 89,984
Ni‘ihau                  21º 55′ N 160º 10′ W             69.5 / 44,480
Kaho‘olawe           20º 33′ N 156º 35′ W             44.6 / 28,544
Nihoa                    23º 06′ N 161º 58′ W             0.3 / 192
Molokini               20º 38′ N 156º 30′ W             0.04 / 25.6
Lehua                    22º 01′ N 160º 06′ W             0.4 / 256
Ka‘ula                   21º 40′ N 160º 32′ W             0.2 / 128
Laysan                   25º 50′ N 171º 50′ W             1.6 / 1,024
Lisiansky               26º 02′ N 174º 00′ W             0.6 / 384
Palmyra                 05º 52′ N 162º 05′ W             4.6 / 2,944
Ocean                    28º 25′ N 178º 25′ W             0.4 / 256

TOTAL:                   6,427.74 (square miles) / 4,113,753.6 (acres)

The Hawaiian nationality is termed Hawaiian subject and not Hawaiian citizen. The distinction between subject and citizen is that the former is the political status of an individual in a monarchical form of government, whether absolute or constitutional, and the latter is the political status of an individual in a republic or non-monarchical government.

Under Hawaiian law, nationality can be acquired four ways:

1. Born within Hawaiian territory—jus soli, also called native-born or natural-born;
2. Born outside of Hawaiian territory from parents with Hawaiian nationality—jus sanguinis;
3. Naturalize. The Minister of the Interior, with the approval of the Monarch, shall have the power in person upon the application of any alien foreigner who shall have resided within the Kingdom five years or more, stating his intention to become a permanent resident of the Kingdom, to administer the oath of allegiance to such foreigner, if satisfied that it will be for the good of the Kingdom. (§429, Article VIII, Hawaiian Civil Code);
4. Denizen. The Monarch can confer upon any alien resident abroad, or temporarily resident in this Kingdom, letters patent of denization, conferring upon such alien, without abjuration of allegiance, all the rights, privileges and immunities of a native. The letters patent shall render the denizen in all respects accountable to the laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom, and impose upon him the like fealty to the King, as if he had been naturalized. (§433, Article VIII, Hawaiian Civil Code).

Once a State is occupied, international law preserves the status quo of the occupied State as it was before the occupation began. To preserve the nationality of the occupied State from being manipulated by the occupying State to its advantage, international law only allows individuals born within the territory of the occupied State to acquire the nationality of their parents. To preserve the status quo, Article 49 of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention mandates that the “Occupying Power shall not…transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” To do so is a war crime.

For individuals, who were born within Hawaiian territory, to be a Hawaiian subjects they must be a direct descendant of an individual who was a Hawaiian subject prior to the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom government on January 17, 1893. All other individuals born this date to the present are aliens who can only acquire the nationality of their parents.

According to the 1890 government census, Hawaiian subjects numbered 48,107, with the aboriginal Hawaiians, both pure and part, numbering 40,622, being 84% of the national population, and the non-aboriginal Hawaiians numbering 7,485, being 16%. Despite the massive migrations of foreigners to the Hawaiian Islands since 1898, which, according to the State of Hawai‘i Office of Hawaiian Affairs, numbers 1,302,939 in 2009, with the aboriginal Hawaiian population at 322,812 (25.3%), the status quo of the national population of the Hawaiian Kingdom is maintained.

In other words, with the increase in numbers of Hawaiian subjects, both aboriginal and non-aboriginal, since 1893, the status quo of the Hawaiian national population has been maintained to date. Therefore, under the international laws of occupation, the aboriginal Hawaiian population of 322,812 in 2009 would continue to be 84% of the Hawaiian national population, and the non-aboriginal Hawaiian population of 61,488 would continue to be 16%. The balance of the population in 2009, being 918,639, are aliens.