Monthly Archives: April 2024

The Importance of Education and Getting the Facts Straight

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As the country is moving ever so close to compliance with the law of occupation by the State of Hawai‘i, misinformation and disinformation must be addressed. It is understandable for the population of an occupied State not to fully grasp the situation of the Hawaiian Kingdom that it not only still exists as a country under international law but that it has been under a prolonged occupation for 131 years.

The reason why this occupation has lasted so long is because of denationalization through Americanization that formally began as a policy in 1906. Within three generations, the national consciousness of the Hawaiian Kingdom in the minds of its national population was erased. Replacing Hawaiian national consciousness with American national consciousness, together with its political ideologies and beliefs.

The recovery of Hawaiian national consciousness relies on accurate information through education. Just as education in the public and private schools, in the early twentieth century, was weaponized to erase Hawaiian national consciousness in the minds of school children, education today must be utilized, not weaponized, to restore it. It is a process, and, sometimes, an unpleasant process. This process of restoring Hawaiian national consciousness reveals the untruths and deceptions that were used to conceal an international travesty.

Many Hawaiian subjects served in the American military, whether voluntarily or by conscription, and it is naturally difficult to come to terms with this information. This difficulty to come to terms also applies to the entire population of Hawai‘i who were taught in school and were led to believe that Hawai‘i is a part of the United States and that they are American citizens.

The clashing of two sets of beliefs is called cognitive dissonance, which “is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when a person holds two contradictory beliefs at the same time.” The two beliefs that collide is Hawai‘i the 50th State of the American Union and the Hawaiian Kingdom as an occupied State since 1893. Both beliefs are mutually exclusive, which means that both cannot exist at the same time. The continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom as an occupied State cancels the existence of the State of Hawai‘i and the federal government. As the Permanent Court of International Justice, in the S.S. Lotus case, stated in its 1927 judgment:

Now the first and foremost restriction imposed by international law upon a State is that—failing the existence of a permissive rule to the contrary—it may not exercise its power in any form in the territory of another State. In this sense jurisdiction is certainly territorial; it cannot be exercised by a State outside its territory except by virtue of a permissive rule derived from international custom or from a convention (treaty).

Since 1893, the United States has been exercising its authority over Hawaiian Kingdom territory without any ‘permissive rule derived from international custom or from a convention (treaty).’ If the United States, to include the State of Hawai‘i, has no lawful authority to exercise its power in Hawaiian territory, then everything that derives from its unlawful authority is invalid in the eyes of international law. This comes from the rule of international law ex injuria jus non oritur, which is Latin for “law (or right) does not arise from injustice.”

From this international rule—ex injuria jus non oritur, when applied to an occupied State, springs forth another rule of international law called postliminium, where all unlawful acts that an Occupying State may have been done in occupied territory are invalid and cannot be enforced when the occupation comes to an end. According to Professor Oppenheim, “If the occupant has performed acts which are not legitimate acts [allowable under the law of occupation], postliminium makes their invalidity apparent.”

Cognitive dissonance occurs when a person cannot let go of their former beliefs and tries to incorporate these beliefs into the new belief. This approach reveals contradictions, which is analogous to asserting baseball rules into a football game. It is either a football game or a baseball game. The football game is the American occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom. The baseball game is Hawai‘i being the 50th State of the American Union. International laws are the rules of the football game, and American laws are the rules of the baseball game.

Within the United States, there is a Sovereign citizen movement that believe “the Uniform Commercial Code, which provides an interstate standard for such things as property ownership or bank accounts (and documents that they believe apply only to their strawman, such as drivers’ licenses, is a codification of the illegitimate commercial law ruling the United States.” Many groups of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement subscribe to this belief that sees the State of Hawai‘i as a corporation with no authority over free and sovereign citizens. Whether you agree or disagree with the Sovereign citizen movement, it has no place in the Hawaiian Kingdom being an occupied State that has suffered the devastating effects of the war crime of denationalization. To claim to be a sovereign citizen in a country that is a constitutional monarchy is a contradiction. You cannot have a monarchical system of governance when some of its people claim to be sovereign themselves.

The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) was first published in 1952 as a joint project of the Uniform Law Commission, which is also called the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, and the American Law Institute. Its goal was to harmonize State law because commercial transactions extend beyond one State’s jurisdiction within the United States. Another goal of the UCC was to modernize contract law.

Having come from two private organizations, the UCC is not American law until the States and Territories of the United States adopt it. Forty-nine States, which includes the State Hawai‘i, as well as the District of Columbia, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have adopted the UCC as their law with minimal changes. According to the website of the Uniform Law Commission, the “Uniform Commercial Code…is a comprehensive set of laws governing all commercial transactions in the United States. It is not a federal law, but a uniformly adopted state law.” As such, the UCC is an American law limited within the territorial jurisdictions of the forty-eight States of the American Union and three of its territories that adopted it.

The political economy of the United States and its UCC is not the political economy of the Hawaiian Kingdom prior to the American invasion in 1893. Political economy is the economic system and its governance by the political system of a State. The Hawaiian Kingdom was a progressive country when compared to the European States and their successor States on the American continent in the nineteenth century. Its political economy was not based on Adam Smith’s capitalism—Wealth of Nations, but rather Francis Wayland’s approach of a cooperative capitalism. According to Professor Mykkanen, Wayland was interested in “defining the limits of government by developing a theory of contractual enactment of political society, which would be morally and logically binding and acceptable to all its members.”

Wayland’s book, Elements of Political Economy, was the fundamental basis when written in the Hawaiian language and adjusted to apply to Hawaiian society accordingly by William Richards. The book was titled No Ke Kālai‘āina (English translation), which theorized governance from a foundation of Natural Rights within a Hawaiian agrarian society based upon capitalism that was not only cooperative in nature, but also morally grounded in Christian values. Contemporary historians and academics mistakenly assumed that American capitalism was the political economy of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Along with the unlawful imposition of American municipal laws after 1898, was the unlawful imposition of the American version of capitalism. Karl Marx, the renowned critical theorist, would have found the Hawaiian Kingdom’s political economy very appealing.

The Hawaiian Kingdom was the only country to adopt Wayland’s theory of economics. The United States and the United Kingdom based their economies on Smith’s theory of capitalism. Wayland’s form of capitalism was taught in the schools throughout the islands and framed political and economic discourse in the country. It also set in motion Hawai‘i’s mixed economy and the seed was planted for the Hawaiian Kingdom to become the first welfare State that would predate the Nordic countries by a century.

The welfare State is a “concept of government in which the state or a well-established network of social institutions plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of [its] citizens.” German Chancellor Otto von Bismark is credited with establishing the idea of a welfare State, and the Hawaiian Legislative Assembly would cite him regarding economic legislation and reform for the Kingdom. He was referred to as “Bisimaka,” which is Hawaiian for “Bismark.”

During military occupations of occupied States, the occupying State is only allowed limited authority to exercise its power by virtue the permissive rule under Article 43 of the 1907 Hague Regulations. Article 43 provides that once the occupying State has effective control of the territory of an occupied State, it is obligated to establish a military government in order to administer the laws of the occupied State. In other words, the United States should have established a military government on January 17, 1893, to administer temporarily administer Hawaiian Kingdom law after Queen Lili‘uokalani conditionally surrendered, and up until there is a treaty of peace between the United States and the Hawaiian Kingdom.

According to Professor Benvenisti, the “public order and civil life are maintained through laws, regulations, court decisions, administrative guidelines, and even customs, all of which form an intricate and balanced system.” This description reflects the legal order of a State, where sovereignty is the authority exercised by the government of the State in maintaining the ‘public order and civil live.’

For the Hawaiian Kingdom, the legal order is framed by the 1864 Constitution, as amended, which provides for the ‘laws, regulations, court decisions, administrative guidelines, and even customs’ to exist. The legal order of the occupied State includes the Hawaiian Kingdom’s political economy. The Hawaiian Kingdom’s legal order is explained in Chapter 1—Hawaiian Constitutional Governance (p. 59-94) in the ebook Royal Commission of Inquiry: Investigating War Crimes and Human Rights Violations Committed in the Hawaiian Kingdom. U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10. Section 358 titled Occupation Does Not Transfer Sovereignty states:

Being an incident of war, military occupation confers upon the invading force the means of exercising control for the period of occupation. It does not transfer the sovereignty to the occupant, but simply the authority or power to exercise some of the rights of sovereignty. The exercise of these rights from the established power of the occupant and from the necessity of maintaining law and order, indispensable both to the inhabitants and to the occupying force. It is therefore unlawful for a belligerent to annex occupied territory or to create a new State therein while [the occupation is] still in progress.

Since January 17, 1893, the United States was unlawfully exercising its power over the Hawaiian Islands and the population by maintaining its puppet governments calling themselves the provisional government and then the so-called Republic of Hawai‘i, and its unlawful imposition of American laws when it unlawfully annexed the Hawaiian Islands in 1898, and then unlawfully created the American State of Hawai‘i in 1959. The very existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom as an occupied State cancels any and all American authority in the territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom unless that authority is in line with the 1907 Hague Regulations and 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, which it is currently not.

Considering the severity of the situation, the Council of Regency’s approach toward compliance by the State of Hawai‘i is laser focused on the duties and responsibilities of State of Hawai‘i Major General Kenneth Hara to transform the State of Hawai‘i into a Military Government. The Council of Regency did not choose MG Hara to perform this duty, but rather the rules of international law did because he is the highest ranking general officer in the State of Hawai‘i Department of Defense.

The Hawaiian Kingdom is at the cusp of a radical change in governance that is in line with international law. A change that must bring 131 years of violating international law in line with Hawaiian Kingdom law. As education was once weaponized for illicit purposes, it is crucial at this time to facilitate compliance with the law through accurate information and responsible education.

Game Theory’s Zero-Sum Game and the American Occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom

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A zero-sum game is a “mathematical representation in game theory and economic theory of a situation that involves two sides, where the result is an advantage for one side and an equivalent loss for the other.” Examples of zero-sum games include poker and the American presidential election. In other words, the winner takes all. How does this type of game apply to the American occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom? The answer to this question derives from State sovereignty under international law.

An independent State is the highest status that a political entity can achieve. There is no political status higher than the State. Sovereignty is the authority over the territory of the State exercised by the State’s governing body, which is geo-political. All governments of independent States are not identical because they are the outcome of their geographic location and political experiences, e.g. constitutional monarchies, and republics. But all States are the same, which have four components: a defined territory, a population, a centralized government, and the ability to enter into foreign relations with other States.

In the Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom arbitration, the arbitral tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration stated, “in the nineteenth century the Hawaiian Kingdom existed as an independent State recognized as such by the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and various other States.” So there is no question that the Hawaiian Kingdom existed in the nineteenth century as a sovereign and independent State with all rights that afforded under international law.

In the Island of Palmas arbitration, which was a dispute between the United States and the Netherlands, the arbitrator explained that “Sovereignty in the relations between States signifies independence. Independence in regard to a portion of the globe is the right to exercise therein, to the exclusion of any other State, the functions of a State.” And in the S.S. Lotus case, which was a dispute between France and Turkey, the Permanent Court of International Justice stated:

Now the first and foremost restriction imposed by international law upon a State is that—failing the existence of a permissive rule to the contrary—it may not exercise its power in any form in the territory of another State. In this sense jurisdiction is certainly territorial; it cannot be exercised by a State outside its territory except by virtue of a permissive rule derived from international custom or from a convention (treaty).

Since 1898, the United States has been directly exercising it authority over Hawaiian Kingdom territory without any ‘permissive rule derived from international custom or from a convention (treaty).’ The United States claims its authority over the Hawaiian Islands derives from the joint resolution of annexation of July 7, 1898. However, the joint resolution is not customary international law nor is it a treaty. Rather, it is congressional legislation, which the United States Supreme Court, in United States v. Curtiss-Wright, stated “Neither the Constitution nor the laws passed in pursuance of it have any force in foreign territory unless in respect of our own citizens, and operations of the nation in such territory must be governed by treaties, international understandings and compacts, and the principles of international law.”

If congressional laws have no force in foreign territory, then the joint resolution could not have the force of annexing the Hawaiian Islands, which is 2,471 miles from its western border of California. The truth of the matter is that the joint resolution of annexation provided the means for erasing the history of the United States invasion of the Hawaiian Kingdom on January 16, 1893, and militarily overthrowing the Hawaiian government the following day, which, under international law, triggered the law of occupation. As an independent State under international law, the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom government did not affect the Hawaiian State and its independence and sovereignty. U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 unequivocally states that occupation does not transfer sovereignty. According to Section 358:

Being an incident of war, military occupation confers upon the invading force the means of exercising control for the period of occupation. It does not transfer the sovereignty to the occupant, but simply the authority or power to exercise some of the rights of sovereignty. The exercise of these rights results from the established power of the occupant and from the necessity of maintaining law and order, indispensable both to the inhabitants and to the occupying force. It is therefore unlawful for a belligerent occupant to annex occupied territory or to create a new State therein while hostilities are still in progress.

The permissive rule under international law that allows one State to exercise authority over the territory of another State is Article 43 of the 1907 Hague Regulations, that mandates the occupant to establish a military government in order to provisionally administer the laws of the occupied State until there is a treaty of peace where the occupation comes to an end. Section 362 of the FM 27-10 explains that “Military government is the form of administration by which an occupying power exercises governmental authority over occupied territory.”

From January 17, 1893, to July 7, 1898, the United States has been unlawfully exercising its power, indirectly, over the territory of the Hawaiian State, through its puppet governments called the provisional government and the Republic of Hawai‘i that were installed after the overthrow. From July 7, 1898, to the present, the United States has been directly exercising unlawful authority over the territory of the Hawaiian State. How does international law and the law of occupation see this unlawful exercise of authority?

If the United States, to include the State of Hawai‘i, has no authority to exercise its power in Hawaiian territory, then everything that derives from its unlawful authority is invalid in the eyes of international law. This comes from the rule of international law called ex injuria jus non oritur, which is Latin for “law (or right) does not arise from injustice.” From this rule of international law, when applied to an Occupied State, is another rule of international law called postliminium, where all unlawful acts that an Occupying State may have done in occupied territory are invalid and cannot be enforced when the occupation comes to an end.

This rule also applied in the American Civil War from 1861-1865. In 1868, the U.S. Supreme Court had to mitigate the impact of this principle in the aftermath of when the war came to an end. In Texas v. White, the Supreme Court stated:

…that acts necessary to peace and good order among citizens, such for example, as acts sanctioning and protecting marriage and the domestic relations, governing the course of descents, regulating the conveyance and transfer of property, real and personal, and providing remedies for injuries to person and estate, and other similar acts, which would be valid if emanating from a lawful government must be regarded in general as valid when proceeding from an actual, though unlawful, government, and that acts in furtherance or support of rebellion against the United States, or intended to defeat the just rights of citizens, and other acts of like nature, must, in general, be regarded as invalid and void.

All acts done by the Texas government were ‘invalid and void’ during the rebellion, but certain acts were only recognized as valid after the Civil War ended. The Supreme Court’s decision had a retroactive effect to give validity to acts that were previously invalid. Just as the rule applied during the American rebellion, this rule applies while the territory of a State is under occupation by an Occupying State. Acts done by an Occupying State, if it is authorized under international law, are valid and its validity would continue to be recognized as valid when the occupation comes to an end.

This is not the case, however, because the acts of the United States since January 17, 1893, to the present, have not been in accordance with the law of occupation but rather the war crime of usurpation of sovereignty during military occupation. Usurpation of sovereignty is the unlawful imposition of American laws and administrative measures within the territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom, a co-equal sovereign State.

The Hawaiian Council of Regency understands the scope and magnitude of the United States and the State of Hawai‘i’s violation of international laws even if the population does not see it themselves. The violation of international laws has rendered the population with absolutely no rights to property that can be protected, which include land, homes, cars, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets and patents. The Council of Regency’s Operational Plan to Transition the State of Hawai‘i into a Military Government addresses this significant issue.

The Hawaiian Kingdom exists as a sovereign and independent State, even under occupation. This existence, under international law, precludes the United States, as the Occupying State, from exercising its power unless it does so by virtue of international law as an occupant. It cannot co-exist with the Hawaiian Kingdom in its own territory, except by virtue of the law of occupation which temporarily allows for it.

The unlawful acts done by the United States has rendered all rights to property, whether tangible or intangible, void and invalid. For the people to have their rights to property intact and valid, the United States must show that the Hawaiian Kingdom no longer exists and that it is the successor State to the Hawaiian Islands. It can’t because the Permanent Court of Arbitration already recognized the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist as a State since the nineteenth century. This is the devastating effect of the zero-sum on the people.

Accessing Two Books on the Political and Legal History of the Hawaiian Islands

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In 2011, Dr. Keanu Sai wrote a book titled Ua Mau Ke Ea – Sovereignty Endures: An Overview of the Political and Legal History of the Hawaiian Islands. Pū‘ā Foundation is the publisher of this book that can be purchased online at their website. This book draws from Dr. Sai’s doctoral dissertation in political science titled The American Occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom: Beginning the Transition from Occupied to Restored State. Ua Mau is currently being used to teach Hawaiian history in the Middle Schools, High Schools, and entry level collage classes.

In 2020, Dr. Sai is an editor and author of a free eBook titled Royal Commission of Inquiry: Investigating War Crimes and Human Rights Violations Committed in the Hawaiian Kingdom. Contributing authors include Professor Matthew Craven from the University of London, SOAS, Law Department, on the subject of the Hawaiian Kingdom’s continued existence as a State under international law; Professor William Schabas from Middlesex University London, Law Department, on the subject of war crimes being committed in the Hawaiian Kingdom; and Professor Federico Lenzerini from the University of Siena, Italy, Department of Political and International Science, on the subject of human rights violations committed in the Hawaiian Kingdom and the right of self-determination of a population under military occupation. In 2022, a book review of the Royal Commission of Inquiry’s eBook was done by Dr. Anita Budziszewska from the University of Warsaw, which was published in the Polish Journal of Political Science. This book is currently being used in undergraduate and graduate courses at universities.

To access Dr. Sai’s other publications you can visit his University of Hawai‘i website. Dr. Sai firmly believes in the power of education. He often states, “The practical value of history, is that it is a film of the past, run through the projector of today, on to the screen of tomorrow.” It is through education and awareness that the national consciousness of the Hawaiian Kingdom will be restored to its rightful place.

Dr. Keanu Sai Receives an Award from the Royal Order of Kamehameha I

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At a ceremony yesterday at Hulihe‘e Palace in Kona, Island of Hawai‘i, Dr. Keanu Sai received an award from the Royal Order of Kamehameha I for “unwavering commitment to reactivate the Hawaiian Kingdom Government and rectify over a century of unlawful occupation.” Presenting the award was Ali‘i ‘Aimoku Alika Desha.

On April 15, 1927, Ali‘i ‘Aimoku John C. Lane wrote in the Honolulu Advertiser under the title “Kamehameha Order Marks 25 Years of Growth With Convention Beginning Today”:

On or about May 13, 1902, there met in the old “Foster hall” a group of prominent Hawaiians, and there discussed the establishing of a fraternal organization among the Hawaiians. Present at the meeting were George H. Huddy, James H. Boyd, Abraham Fernandez, Charles H. Rose, William H. Coney, John H. Wise, Rev. J.M. Ezera, David K. Ainoa, Johh K. Nakookoo, and others. The result was the creation and establishment of the Order of Kamehameha, and Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole was chosen Alii Aimoku, the highest position in the Order, which position he held continuously until his death on January 7, 1922.

Pictured below are members of the Order of Kamehameha at the State funeral of Queen Lili‘uokalani in 1917.

Correcting Revisionist History: The Emperical Writes Back – Re-Examining Hawaiian Dispossession Resulting from the Māhele of 1848

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In 2010, Donovan Preza graduated with his M.A. Degree in Geography from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. His Master’s thesis was titled “The Emperical Writes Back: Re-Examining Hawaiian Dispossession Resulting from the Māhele of 1848.” Preza, through analytical rigor and academic research, effectively turned on its head the false belief that has been promoted by the University of Hawai‘i since the 1990s that the Māhele of 1848 was a disaster for the Hawaiian people.

Preza, for his Master’s thesis, was also the recipient of the Norman Meller Research Award for the best MA research paper produced at the University of Hawai‘i in the social sciences or humanities and focused on the Pacific Islands. Here is his abstract for his thesis:

This research examines the transition of land tenure in Hawai‘i to a system of private property. Known as the Māhele, this transition was believed to have been the cause of dispossession of Hawaiians from land. This thesis questions presumptions identifying the Māhele as a sufficient condition of dispossession. Historical approach, interpretation, authority and evidence types are examined while questioning and contributing to such debates. The Māhele process is re-examined and a nuanced description of the process was provided. This resulted in the identification of previously un-examined set of data: the fee-simple sale of Government Land. Analysis of these sales revealed an alternate explanation for dispossession in Hawai‘i: the loss of governance. Ultimately this is a story of dispossession, how it has been understood, misunderstood, and re-understood in Hawai‘i.

UPDATE: Dr. Keanu Sai’s Presentation to the Maui County Council’s DRIP Committee on March 6, 2024

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UPDATE: The video has been updated to include questions of Dr. Keanu Sai from the Committee members after the presentation.

Dr. Keanu Sai’s presentation to the Maui County Council’s Disaster, Resilience, International Affairs, and Planning (DRIP) Committee on the update on the status of Hawai‘i under international law and accountability for war crimes on March 6, 2024. The video is produced by Kanaeokana.