My name is Dr. David Keanu Sai and from 1999-2001, I served as Agent for the Hawaiian Kingdom in international arbitration proceedings under the auspices of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, The Hague, Netherlands. The case was Lance Paul Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom (Larsen case). I was responsible for the drafting of the pleadings as well as communication with the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s (PCA) International Bureau-Secretariat, headed by a Secretary General, regarding the case. So I am very well acquainted with the case as well as what was going on behind the formalities of the case and the confines of the published Award in the International Law Reports, vol. 119, p. 566.

I am also a lecturer at the University of Hawai‘i with a M.A. and a Ph.D. in political science specializing in international relations and public law. My doctoral research and published law articles centers on the continuity of the Hawaiian Kingdom as an independent State under a prolonged occupation by the United States of America (United States) since the Spanish-American War.

After reviewing the two Awards by the Tribunal in the South China Sea case, I perused the Philippines’ Memorial and transcripts of the proceedings to find any reference to the Larsen case that was cited in Tribunal’s Award on Jurisdiction and Admissibility (paragraph 181) as well as the Award on the Merits (paragraph 157, footnote 98). In the Memorial, which is called a pleading in international proceedings, the Philippines brought up the Larsen case in paragraphs 5.125 and 5.126. It was also mentioned by Professor Philippe Sands, QC, in his expert testimony to the Tribunal during a hearing on jurisdiction on July 8, 2015, and found on page 123 of the transcripts. On the Larsen case, the Philippine Memorial stated:

There is much said in these two paragraphs that may escape the layman who may not be familiar with Hawai‘i’s legal history and its place in international law. By the Philippines own admission it recognized the existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a party to the arbitration, and without the participation of the United States, as an indispensable third party, the Philippines stated the Larsen Tribunal “could not rule on the lawfulness of the conduct of the respondent, the Kingdom of Hawaii.”

Here at the University of Hawai‘i William S. Richardson School of Law, a few faculty members, namely Dr. Diane Desierto, Dr. David Cohen, and Carol Peterson, have gone so far as to call the Larsen case mere puffery. But can the Larsen case be an exaggeration of the Hawaiian Kingdom’s continued existence under international law and the role of the principle of indispensable third parties when it comes to the United States, as claimed by these faculty members who admitted, at a closed forum, they don’t know the legal history of Hawai‘i?

Obviously, the Philippine Government did not think so, and nor did the Tribunal in the South China Sea arbitration. As a landmark case in international arbitration, the South China Sea arbitration has drawn attention to the Larsen case again, which gives me an opportunity to set the record straight in light of the detractors, but also for those who are just curious.

In the Larsen case, the Hawaiian Kingdom, which I served as Agent along with others on my legal team, was a “Defendant,” which in international proceedings is also called a “Respondent.” This means that the Hawaiian Kingdom was defending itself from the allegations made by Larsen, as the “Plaintiff,” which is also called a “Claimant,” that the Council of Regency was allowing the unlawful imposition of American municipal laws in the territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom, which led to his unfair trial and subsequent incarceration.

By going to Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom at the PCA’s case repository, it identifies me as the Agent for the Hawaiian Kingdom, identifies the Hawaiian Kingdom as a “State,” and under the heading of “case description,” it provides the dispute as follows:

The Philippines’ Memorial also cites an article by Bederman and Hilbert on the Larsen case that was originally published in the American Journal of International (vol. 95, p. 928), and republished the article in the Hawaiian Journal of Law and Politics (vol. 1, p. 82) that the Philippines cited. According to Bederman and Hilbert, who succinctly stated the dispute, “At the center of the PCA proceeding was…that the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist and that the Hawaiian Council of Regency (representing the Hawaiian Kingdom) is legally responsible under international law for the protection of Hawaiian subjects, including the claimant. In other words, the Hawaiian Kingdom was legally obligated to protect Larsen from the United States’ ‘unlawful imposition [over him] of [its] municipal laws’ through its political subdivision, the State of Hawaii. As a result of this responsibility, Larsen submitted, the Hawaiian Council of Regency should be liable for any international law violations that the United States committed against him.”

Clearly, the Larsen case was not about whether the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist, but was based on the presumption that it does exist, and, as such, a dispute arose between a Hawaiian national and the Hawaiian Government that stemmed from an illegal and prolonged occupation by the United States. My responsibility, as the Agent, was to defend the Hawaiian Government from Larsen’s allegation of allowing the imposition of American municipal laws in the Hawaiian Islands.

I was also keenly aware that before the PCA could establish the Arbitral Tribunal to preside over the dispute between Larsen and the Hawaiian Kingdom, it had to first confirm that the Hawaiian Kingdom as a “State” continues to exist in order for the PCA to exercise its “institutional jurisdiction” (United Nations Dispute Settlement, Permanent Court of Arbitration, p. 15) so that it could facilitate the creation of an ad hoc tribunal. By extension, the PCA also had to confirm that Larsen’s nationality was a Hawaiian subject, and the Council of Regency was the Hawaiian Government.

As an intergovernmental organization established under the 1899 Hague Convention, I, and the 1907 Hague Convention, I, the PCA facilitates the creation of ad hoc arbitral tribunals to settle disputes between two or more States, i.e., the Philippines v. China, or between a State and a private entity, i.e., Romak, S.A. v. Uzbekistan. Romak, S.A. is a Swiss company that specializes in the sale of grain and cereal products. In both cases, the States have to exist in fact and not in theory in order for the PCA to have institutional jurisdiction. Disputes must be “international” and not “municipal,” which are disputes that go before national courts of States and not international courts or tribunals.

Since the arbitration agreement between Larsen and the Hawaiian Government was submitted to the PCA on November 8, 1999, the PCA was doing their due diligence as to whether the Hawaiian Kingdom currently exists as a State under international law. If the Hawaiian Kingdom does not exist then this fact would negate the existence of the nationality of Larsen as a Hawaiian subject and the existence of the Council of Regency as the Hawaiian government, and, therefore, the dispute.

After its due diligence, however, the PCA could not deny that the Hawaiian Kingdom did exist as an independent State, and, along with other treaties, the Hawaiian Kingdom had a treaty with the Netherlands, which houses the PCA itself. However, what faced the PCA is that it could not find any evidence that the Hawaiian Kingdom had ceased to exist under international law. Only by way of a “treaty of cession,” whereby the Hawaiian Kingdom agreed to merge itself into the territory of the United States, could the Hawaiian Kingdom have been extinguished under international law.

There was never a treaty, except for American municipal laws, enacted by the United States Congress, that treat Hawai‘i as if it were annexed. Municipal laws are not international laws, as between States, but are laws that are limited in scope and authority to the territory of the State that enacted them. In other words, an American municipal law could no more annex the Hawaiian Kingdom, than it could annex the Netherlands.

My legal team and Larsen’s attorney knew this and operated on the “presumption” that the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist until evidence shows otherwise. This was the same conclusion that the PCA came to, which prompted a telephone conversation I had with the PCA’s Secretary General, Tjaco T. van den Hout, in February 2000. In that telephone conversation, he recommended that the Hawaiian Government along with Larsen’s Counsel, Ms. Ninia Parks, provide a formal invitation to the United States Government to join in the arbitration. I recall his specific words to me on this matter. He said that in order to maintain the integrity of this case, he recommended that the Hawaiian Government, with the consent of Larsen’s legal representative, provide a formal invitation to the United States to join in the current arbitration. He then requested that I provide evidence that the invitation was made so that it can be made a part of the record for the case.

This invitation would elicit one of the three possible responses: first, the United States accepts the invitation, which recognizes the existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom and its government and will have to answer to its unlawful imposition of American municipal laws that led to Larsen’s unfair trial and incarceration; second, the United States denies the existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom because Hawai‘i is the so-called 50th State of the Federal Union and demands that the PCA cease and desist in entertaining the dispute; or, third, the United States denies the invitation to join in the arbitration but does not deny the existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the dispute between a Hawaiian national and the government representing the Hawaiian Kingdom.

On March 3, 2000, a conference call meeting was held with John Crook from the United States State Department in Washington, D.C., together with myself representing the Hawaiian Government and Ms. Parks representing Larsen. After the meeting, I drafted a letter to Crook that covered what was discussed in the meeting regarding the invitation and a carbon copy was sent to Secretary General van den Hout, as he requested, so that it could be placed on the record that an invitation was made. A few days later the United States Embassy in The Hague notified the PCA that they denied the invitation to join in the arbitration, but requested permission from the Hawaiian Government and Ms. Parks, on behalf of Larsen, to have access to all pleadings and transcripts of the case. Both Ms. Parks and I were individually contacted by telephone from the PCA’s Deputy Secretary General, Phyllis Hamilton, of the request made by the US Embassy, which we both consented to. It was also agreed that the records of the proceedings would be open to the public.

The United States took the third option and did not deny the existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Thereafter, the PCA began to form the Arbitral Tribunal the following month in April of 2000. Memorials were filed with the Tribunal by Larsen on May 22, 2000, and the Hawaiian Government on May 25, 2000. The Hawaiian Government then filed its Counter-Memorial on June 22, 2000, and Larsen its Counter-Memorial on June 23, 2000.

After the pleadings were submitted, the Tribunal issued Procedural Order no. 3 on July 17, 2000. In the Procedural Order, the Tribunal articulated the dispute from the pleadings in the following statement.

The Tribunal further stated in the Procedural Order that it “is concerned whether the first issue does in fact raise a dispute between the parties, or, rather, a dispute between each of the parties and the United States over the treatment of the plaintiff by the United States. If it is the latter, that would appear to be a dispute which the Tribunal cannot determine, inter alia because the United States is not a party to the agreement to arbitrate.” The Tribunal, therefore, stated that it could not get to the merits of the case regarding “redress against the Respondent Government” as the second issue, until it address the first issue that Larsen’s “rights as a Hawaiian subject are being violated…by the United States of America.” This first issue that the Tribunal was asked to determine is what caused the Tribunal to raise the principle of an “indispensable third party” that stemmed from the Monetary Gold case. In other words, could the Tribunal proceed to rule on the lawfulness of the conduct of the Hawaiian Government when its judgment would imply an evaluation of the lawfulness of the conduct of the United States, which is not a party to the case.

The Tribunal scheduled oral hearings to be held at the PCA on December 7, 8 and 11, 2000.

https://vimeo.com/17007826

A day before the oral hearings were to begin on December 7, the three arbitrators met with myself and legal team and Ms. Parks in the PCA to go over the schedule and what we can expect. What they also provided to us were booklets of the decisions by the International Court of Justice, namely the Monetary Gold Removed from Rome in 1943 (Italy v. the United Kingdom, France and the United States), Case Concerning Certain Phosphate Land in Nauru (Nauru v. Australia), and Case Concerning East Timor (Portugal v. Australia).

All three cases centered on the indispensable third party principle and that we should be prepared to respond as to how this case can proceed without the participation of the United States. In the Monetary Gold case it was on the non-participation of Albania; the Nauru Case was the non-participation of New Zealand and the United Kingdom; and the East Timor case was the non-participation of Indonesia. Of the three cases, only the Nauru case could proceed because the ICJ concluded that New Zealand and the United Kingdom were not indispensable third parties.

After two days of hearings, it was evident that the Tribunal would not be able to adjudge and declare, according to Procedural Order no. 3, that Larsen’s “rights as a Hawaiian subject are being violated…by the United States of America,” because the United States was not a party to the proceedings. Without a decision by the Tribunal that finds Larsen’s rights are being violated, he would be unable to get to the second issue of having the Tribunal declare and adjudge that he “does have ‘redress against the Respondent Government’ in relation to these violations.” In light of this, I knew that Larsen would not prevail in these proceedings without the participation of the United States. On the final day of the hearings, December 11, I decided to ask the Tribunal to make a determination on a topic that I felt would not violate the indispensable third party principle that was at the center of these proceedings.

The Hawaiian Government needed a pronouncement by the Tribunal as to the legal status of the Hawaiian Kingdom under international law that would deny the lawfulness of American municipal laws within Hawaiian territory. In other words, the Hawaiian Government needed a pronouncement of international law that could be cited as a bar to American municipal laws from being applied in Hawaiian territory. This fundamental bar of one State’s municipal laws to be applied within the territory of another State centers on the legal meaning of “independence.”

In international arbitration between the Netherlands and the United States at the PCA (Island of Palmas case), the arbitrator explained what the term independence means in international law. In the Award (p. 8), Judge Max Huber stated, “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. The development of the national organization of State during the last few centuries and, as a corollary, the development of international law, have established this principle of the exclusive competence of the State in regard to its own territory.”

Oppenheim, International Law, Vol. 1, p. 177-8 (2nd ed. 1912), explains: “Sovereignty as supreme authority, which is independent of any other earthly authority, may be said to have different aspects. As excluding dependence from any other authority, and in especial from the authority of the another State, sovereignty is independence. It is external independence with regard to the liberty of action outside its borders in the intercourse with other States which a State enjoys. It is internal independence with regard to the liberty of action of a State inside its borders. As comprising the power of a State to exercise supreme authority over all persons and things within its territory, sovereignty is territorial supremacy. As comprising the power of a State to exercise supreme authority over its citizens at home and abroad, sovereignty is personal supremacy. For these reasons a State as an International Person possesses independence and territorial and personal supremacy.”

With this in mind, I made the following statement and request to the Tribunal that is provided in the transcripts of the final day of the hearings on December 11.

The issue before the Tribunal was whether Larsen could hold to account the Hawaiian Government for allowing the unlawful imposition of American municipal laws within Hawaiian territory that led to his unfair trial and subsequent incarceration. My request of the Tribunal on the last day of the oral hearings was to have the Tribunal acknowledge and pronounce the legal status of Hawai‘i under international law as an “independent State,” which, as a co-equal, the United States could not impose its municipal laws within Hawaiian territory without violating international law.

My intent, was to move beyond the dispute with Larsen and address the unlawful imposition of American municipal laws across the entire territory of Hawai‘i and everyone affected by it, not just Larsen. I understood that my request of the Tribunal would not violate the indispensable third party principle, because for the Tribunal to make this pronouncement there would be no need to address the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the conduct of the United States, but merely to acknowledge historical facts.

My request of the Tribunal was similar to the Philippines request of the South China Sea Tribunal to determine whether or not the landmasses in the South China Sea are islands or rocks. The Philippines argued that since it is merely a determination of facts, the Tribunal would not be getting into the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the conduct of States regarding the sovereignty over these islands. The sovereign claims over these land masses would be whether the land masses are islands as defined under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea that establish a maritime zone, or are they rocks that would not establish the maritime zones. According to Article 121(3) of the Convention, an island must “sustain human habitation or economic life of [its] own” in order to generate maritime zones, i.e., the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of 200 miles from its coast. This is how the Philippines successfully argued why the principle of indispensable third parties would not apply.

On February 5, 2001, the Tribunal issued the Award on Jurisdiction, and concluded that the United States was an indispensable third party. In paragraph 12.5, the Tribunal explained, “It follows that the Tribunal cannot determine whether the [Hawaiian Kingdom] has failed to discharge its obligation towards [Lance Larsen] without ruling on the legality of the acts of the United States of America. Yet that is precisely what the Monetary Gold principle precludes the Tribunal from doing. As the International Court of Justice explained in the East Timor case, ‘the Court could not rule on the lawfulness of the conduct of a State when its judgment would imply an evaluation of the lawfulness of the conduct of another State which is not a party to the case.’”

The Tribunal, however, did answer my request, which is provided in paragraph 7.4 of the Award. The Tribunal stated, “A perusal of the material discloses that in the nineteenth century the Hawaiian Kingdom existed as an independent State recognised as such by the United States of America, the United Kingdom and various other States, including by exchanges of diplomatic or consular representatives and the conclusion of treaties.” By using the phrase, “a perusal of the material,” the Tribunal made it clear that its conclusion that the United States recognized the Hawaiian Kingdom as an independent State was drawn from the facts of the case.

By declaring that the United States recognized “the Hawaiian Kingdom as an independent State,” is another way of stating that the United States recognized that only Hawaiian laws could be applied in Hawaiian territory and not the municipal laws of the United States. Through these international proceedings, the Hawaiian Government was able to broaden the impact of an unlawful occupation beyond the Larsen case to now include all persons that have been victimized by the unlawful imposition of American municipal laws within the territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

The Award of the South China Sea arbitration’s reference of the Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom is recognition of the integrity of the Larsen case itself and why it is now a precedent case regarding the principle of indispensable third parties along with the Monetary Gold case and the East Timor case. It is also an acknowledgment of the caliber of those individuals who served as arbitrators, two of which are now serving as Judges on the International Court of Justice, namely Judge Christopher Greenwood and Judge James Crawford, who served as President of the Tribunal.

When I entered the University of Hawai‘i Political Science Department to get my M.A. and Ph.D. I also planned to address the misinformation regarding Hawai‘i as the 50th State of the American Union and the categorization of native Hawaiians as indigenous people as defined under United Nations documents. This is a false narrative that has already been rebuked by the mere fact of the Larsen case, which has now become a precedent case in international law. This information about the Hawaiian Kingdom has made people very uncomfortable, but that’s what happens when you’re faced with the truth.

The recent South China Sea arbitration, being a landmark case, has cited the Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom case as one of the international precedents on “indispensable third parties” along with the Monetary Gold Removed from Rome in 1943 case and East Timor case in its Arbitral Award on Jurisdiction and Admissibility (paragraph 181). This is a significant achievement for the Hawaiian Kingdom in international law.

On July 12, 2016, the Arbitral Tribunal in the South China Sea Arbitration (The Republic of the Philippines v. the People’s Republic of China), established under the auspices of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), issued its decision in The Hague, Netherlands. The decision found that China’s claims over manmade islands in the South China Sea have no legal basis. Its decision was based on the definition of an “island” under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982) (Convention).

According to Article 121(3) of the Convention, an island must “sustain human habitation or economic life of [its] own” in order to generate maritime zones, i.e., the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of 200 miles from its coast. Therefore, China’s creation of islands were never islands to begin with but rather reefs or rocks, which precluded China from claiming any maritime zones. For background of the dispute visit the New York Times “Philippines v. China, Q. and A. on South China Sea.”

At first glance, it would appear that China contested the jurisdiction of the Arbitral Tribunal in a Position Paper it drafted on December 7, 2014, and on this basis refused to participate in the proceedings held at the PCA in The Hague, Netherlands. So how is it possible that the Arbitral Tribunal pronounces a ruling against China when it hasn’t participated in the arbitration?

The simple answer is that the Arbitral Tribunal could issue a ruling because China “did” participate in the proceedings and has consented to PCA’s authority to establish the Tribunal by virtue of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982). As noted in the PCA’s press release, the PCA currently has 12 other cases established under Annex VII of the Law of the Sea Convention. China is a State party to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and arbitration is recognized as a means to settle disputes under Annex VII.

As a State party to the Convention, China consented to arbitration even if it chose not to participate, but it did signify its participation when it made its position public regarding the arbitration proceedings. According to the Arbitral Tribunal in its Arbitral Award on Jurisdiction and Admissibility, it stated in paragraph 11, “the non-participation of China does not bar this Tribunal from proceeding with the arbitration. China is still a party to the arbitration, and pursuant to the terms of Article 296(1) of the Convention and Article 11 of the Annex VII, it shall be bound by any award the Tribunal issues.”

What is not commonly understood is that there are two matters of jurisdiction in cases that come before the PCA. The first is “institutional jurisdiction” of the PCA, and the second is “subject matter jurisdiction” of the Arbitral Tribunal over the particular dispute.

As an intergovernmental organization established under the 1899 Hague Convention, I, and the 1907 Hague Convention, I, the PCA facilitates the creation of ad hoc Arbitral Tribunals to settle disputes between two or more States (interstate), between a State and an international organization, between two or more international organizations, between a State and a private entity, or between an international organization and a private entity (United Nations Dispute Settlement, Permanent Court of Arbitration, p. 15). Disputes must be “international” and not “municipal,” which are disputes that go before national courts of States and not international courts or tribunals.

An explanation of the PCA’s institutional jurisdiction is also provided in the South China Sea case press release. On page 3 the press release the PCA states, “The Permanent Court of Arbitration is an intergovernmental organization established by the 1899 Hague Convention on the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes. The PCA has 121 Members States. Headquartered at the Peace Palace in The Hague, the Netherlands, the PCA facilitates arbitration, conciliation, fact-finding, and other dispute resolution proceedings among various combinations of States, State entities, intergovernmental organizations, and private parties.” China became a member State of the PCA on Nov. 21, 1904, and the Philippines on Sep. 12, 2010.

The “institutional jurisdiction” was satisfied by the PCA because both the Philippines and China are States, which makes it an interstate arbitration, and both are parties to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which under Annex VII provides for arbitration of disputes under the Convention. It was under this provision that the PCA could establish the Arbitral Tribunal.

The first matter that the Tribunal had to address was whether it had “subject matter jurisdiction” over the dispute, which it found that it did. In paragraph 146 of the Arbitral Award, the Tribunal stated, “China’s Position Paper was said by the Chinese Ambassador to have “comprehensively explain[ed] why the Arbitral Tribunal…manifestly has no jurisdiction over the case.” In its Procedural Order No. 4, para. 1.1 (21 April 2015), the Tribunal explained, “the communications by China, including notably its Position Paper of 7 December 2015 and the Letter of 6 February 2015 from the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to the Netherlands, effectively constitute a plea concerning this Arbitral Tribunal’s jurisdiction for the purposes of Article 20 of the Rules of Procedure and will be treated as such for the purposes of this arbitration.”

In this initial phase of jurisdiction, the Tribunal, however, also had to deal with the rule of “indispensable third parties” which applied to States that are not participating in the arbitration and whose rights could be affected by the Tribunal’s decision. These States were Viet Nam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. This rule would not apply to China since the Tribunal recognized China’s participation. Paragraph 157 of the Arbitral Award addressed the indispensable third-party rule, i.e. Viet Nam, which states, “The Tribunal noted that this arbitration differs from past cases in which a court or tribunal has found the involvement of a third party to be indispensable. The Tribunal recalled that ‘the determination of the nature of and entitlements generated by the maritime features in the South China Sea does not require a decision on issues of territorial sovereignty’ and held accordingly that ‘[t]he legal rights and obligation of Viet Nam therefore do not need to be determined as a prerequisite to the determination of the merits of the case.'”

In other words, the Tribunal was going to determine in accordance with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, whether or not the reefs and rocks in the South China Sea constitute the definition of islands as defined under the Convention, which would determine whether or not it had a territorial sea of 12 miles and an EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) of 200 miles. It would not be determining matters of sovereignty over the islands. If they weren’t islands, but rather reefs or rocks, then China’s claims to a territorial sea and an EEZ would become irrelevant. The Arbitral Award determined that they were not islands as defined under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Of importance in these proceedings is that the Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom was specifically referenced in the Award on Jurisdiction in paragraph 181, which was also referenced in the Arbitral Award, paragraph 157, footnote 98. In the Award on Jurisdiction, the Tribunal stated, “The present situation is different from the few cases in which an international court or tribunal has declined to proceed due to the absence of an indispensable third-party, namely in Monetary Gold Removed from Rome in 1943 and East Timor before the International Court of Justice and in the Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom arbitration. In all of those cases, the rights of the third States (respectively Albania, Indonesia, and the United States of America) would not have been affected by a decision in the case, but would have ‘form[ed] the very subject matter of the decision.’ Additionally, in those cases the lawfulness of activities by third States was in question, whereas here none of the Philippines’ claims entail allegations of unlawful conduct by Viet Nam or other third States.”

In the Larsen case, the PCA exercised its “institutional jurisdiction” when it convened the Arbitral Tribunal, because it recognized that the Hawaiian Kingdom is a “State” in a dispute with a Hawaiian subject who was a “private entity.” Like the South China Sea case, once the Tribunal was convened, it had to address whether or not it had subject matter jurisdiction over the dispute between Larsen and the Hawaiian Kingdom, because of the fact that the United States was not a party.

This dispute was specifically stated in the arbitration agreement that the PCA based its institutional jurisdiction. Paragraph 2.1 of the Arbitral Award states, “(a) Lance Paul Larsen, Hawaiian subject, alleges that the Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom is in continual violation of its 1849 Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation with the United States of America, and in violation of the principles of international law laid [down] in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969, by allowing the unlawful imposition of American municipal laws over claimant’s person within the territorial jurisdiction of the Hawaiian Kingdom; (b) Lance Paul Larsen, a Hawaiian subject, alleges that the Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom is also in violation of the principles of international comity by allowing the unlawful imposition of American municipal laws over the claimant’s person within the territorial jurisdiction of the Hawaiian Kingdom.”

What was at the center of the dispute was the unlawful imposition of American municipal laws within the territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom. The Tribunal was not established to determine whether or not the Hawaiian Kingdom exists as a “State,” which was already recognized by the PCA prior to establishing the Tribunal under its mandate of ensuring it had “institutional jurisdiction” in the first place.

According to the American Journal of International Law (vol. 95, p. 928), “At the center of the PCA proceeding was…that the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist and that the Hawaiian Council of Regency (representing the Hawaiian Kingdom) is legally responsible under international law for the protection of Hawaiian subjects, including the claimant. In other words, the Hawaiian Kingdom was legally obligated to protect Larsen from the United States’ ‘unlawful imposition [over him] of [its] municipal laws’ through its political subdivision, the State of Hawaii. As a result of this responsibility, Larsen submitted, the Hawaiian Council of Regency should be liable for any international law violations that the United States committed against him.” If the Hawaiian Kingdom did not exist as a State, the PCA would not have established the Arbitral Tribunal to address the dispute.

In these proceedings, however, the Council of Regency was attempting to get the Tribunal to pronounce the existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom and even try to see if the Tribunal could issue some interim measures of protection. This was deliberately done to show that the Hawaiian Kingdom was taking affirmative steps, even during the proceedings, to do what it could in addressing the unlawful imposition of American municipal laws within Hawaiian territory, which led to Larsen’s unfair criminal trial and subsequent incarceration.

In the Arbitral Award, the Tribunal concluded that the United States was an indispensable third party. In paragraph 12.5, the Tribunal explained, “It follows that the Tribunal cannot determine whether the [Hawaiian Kingdom] has failed to discharge its obligation towards [Lance Larsen] without ruling on the legality of the acts of the United States of America. Yet that is precisely what the Monetary Gold principle precludes the Tribunal from doing. As the International Court of Justice explained in the East Timor case, ‘the Court could not rule on the lawfulness of the conduct of a State when its judgment would imply an evaluation of the lawfulness of the conduct of another State which is not a party to the case.'” It is clear that the Tribunal recognized the Hawaiian Kingdom as a “State” and the lawfulness of its conduct, and the United States as a “third State” and the lawfulness of its conduct.

On February 26, 2016, Dr. Keanu Sai and Ph.D. candidate Lorenz Gonschor each gave a presentation on the legal and political history of the Hawaiian Kingdom at Wilcox Elementary School for the community of Kaua‘i.

Dr. Sai and Gonschor were invited by the Hui Aloha ‘Aina o Kaua‘i as part of Halawai Kū`oko`a, a series of 6 monthly events, open to the public and free of charge.

According to Hui Aloha ‘Aina o Kaua‘i, the purpose of the events is to educate the residents of Kaua’i of the legal and historical facts surrounding Hawai‘i.

We are witnessing a convergence of two very different versions of Hawaiian history:

One version claims Hawai‘i is the 50th State of the United States of America, which by their own admission is flawed. See:

U.S. Department of State’s Website: Article on Hawaiian Annexation Removed

https://hawaiiankingdom.org/blog/u-s-d…

The other belief is that Hawai`i is an independent nation, since 1843, enduring a prolonged, unlawful, belligerent occupation by the United States of America

Our hope is to provide clarity and an opportunity for residents to ask questions and ultimately be able to make informed decisions.

This is a kākou thing. This is a “we” thing.

Whether by chance or design, the term “self-determination” is used to confuse an already confusing situation regarding Hawai‘i. The term is constantly applied as a sound bite employed by individuals who don’t have an understanding of its application. In news coverage of the so-called nation building process of Native Hawaiians, the term is so constantly used that it lost its meaning or that its true meaning was never known in the first place.

In her 1991 law article titled, Historical and Contemporary Hawaiian Self-Determination: A Native Hawaiian Perspective (8 Ariz. J. Int’l & Comp. L. 77), Mililani Trask wrote, “Since [Native] Hawaiians never surrendered their political rights through treaties nor voted on annexation, they fall under the United Nations category of a ‘non-self-governing people.’” Is Mililani correct? This begs the question, what is the United Nations definition of “non-self-governing”? And based on this definition, does it apply to Hawai‘i? To know what is “non-self-governing,” we need to know first the definition of “self-governing.”

Since its creation in 1945, the United Nations defines self-governing three ways: first, as an independent State, second, a State in association with another State, and, third, total incorporation into an existing State, all three of which can only occur through consent of the particular people. The process of consent is called “self-determination,” which is also referred to as “nation building.” Consequently, the term “non-self-governing” is a people who are neither an independent State, a State in association with another State, or have been totally incorporated into an existing State.” This is consistent with Encyclopedia Britannica’s definition of self-determination, which is “the process by which a group of people, usually possessing a certain degree of national consciousness, form their own state and choose their own government.”

The principle of self-determination is always opposed to the State and is not an attribute of a State. In other words, States do not have a right to self-determination, but rather an obligation for member States of the United Nations since 1945, to recognize that peoples, who are non-States, have this right to choose for themselves their form of governance. In the Charter of the United Nations, Article 1 provides, “The Purposes of the United Nations are…to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace.” For the purpose of self-determination, the term “people” or “peoples” are not the State, but rather reside within the State.

What has to be kept in mind was that when the Charter was drafted in 1945 the term “self-determination of peoples” was specifically referring to “Mandate” and “Trust” territories that were under the administration of States since the end of the First World War, and colonial territories of the victors of the Second World War under Article 73(e) of the United Nations Charter. Mandate territories were former territorial units of Germany and the Ottoman Empire that were taken under the control of members of the League of Nations, and Trust territories were former mandate territories under the League of Nations, and territories formerly held by Japan prior to the Second World War. The victors of the Second World War also were required to regularly report the status of their colonial territories, being non-self-governing, on the position where each of its territories stood toward self-governance. The administration of territories, however, and the fostering of self-determination, remained with the colonial State, unlike the Mandate and Trust territories. Article 73(b) of the UN Charter requires the administrating State “to develop self-government, to take due account of the political aspirations of the peoples, and to assist them in the progressive development of their free political institutions.”

These territorial units were often referred to as colonial territories of empires that were comprised of different people than that of the citizenry of the colonial power. An example of a Mandate territory is Iraq, being a former colonial territory of the Ottoman Empire, under the administration of the United Kingdom after the First World War. Iraq achieved independence as an independent State in 1932. The Federated States of Micronesia was a Trust territory under the administration of the United States of America. Micronesia achieved independence as a State in association with the United States in 1986. Fiji was an Article 73(e) territory that achieved independence as a State from the United Kingdom in 1970. Iraq, Micronesia, and Fiji, as non-self-governing territories, exercised self-determination in order to achieve self-governance and became independent sovereign States.

Indigenous people, however, are not placed on the same status as Mandate, Trust or Article 73(e) territories. Indigenous peoples are peoples that reside within the territories of the State themselves, which are not considered under international law as colonial territories. According to the United Nations Special Rapporteur Jose Martinez Cobo of the UN Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, self-determination “constitutes the exercise of free choice by indigenous peoples, who must, to a large extent, create the specific content of this principle, in both its internal and external expressions, which do not necessarily include the right to secede from the State in which they live and to set themselves up as sovereign entities. This right may in fact be expressed in various forms of autonomy within the State.” Autonomy and independence are not synonymous, whereby the former is governance “within” a State and the latter is governance “separate” from the State.

In 2001, the United States confirmed Cobo’s definition of self-determination for indigenous peoples. According to the United States National Security Council, “Indigenous peoples have a right of internal self-determination. By virtue of that right, they may negotiate their political status within the framework of the existing nation-state and are free to pursue their economic, social, and cultural development. Indigenous peoples, in exercising their right of internal self-determination, have the internal right to autonomy or self-government in matters relating to their local affairs, including determination of membership, culture, language, religion, education, information, media, health, housing, employment, social welfare, maintenance of community safety, family relations, economic activities, lands and resources management, environment and entry by non-members, as well as ways and means for financing these autonomous functions.”

The original members of the United Nations only numbered 51 States, and through self-determination of peoples, the membership of the United Nations grew exponentially to 193, which were all former non-self-governing peoples. In 1843, the Hawaiian Kingdom achieved international recognition of independence as a State in the nineteenth century, what one hundred forty two States, including Iraq, Micronesia and Fiji, achieved in the twentieth century. The United Nations is an international organization of States, but not all States are members of the United Nations. Switzerland is an example of a State that was not a member of the United Nations until 2002. The Hawaiian Kingdom, as well, is not a member of the United Nations, but is an independent and sovereign State today.

In 1946, the United States disguised the prolonged occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom, by reporting Hawai‘i to the United Nations under Article 73(e) of the UN Charter as if it was a non-self-governing territory of the United States. This began the deception that Hawai‘i was annexed as a colonial territory to the United States, which formed the foundation for the use of the terms today such as colonization, indigenous rights, and self-determination that only reinforces the illusion that Hawai‘i is a part of the United States.

Self-determination does not apply to Hawai‘i, because Hawai‘i already attained the international status as an independent State in the nineteenth century, like Iraq, Micronesia and Fiji in the twentieth century, which was confirmed by the Permanent Court of Arbitration during arbitral proceedings from 1999-2001, in Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom. The concept of indigenous people, as well, does not apply to the natives of Hawai‘i, because the Hawaiian Islands remain the territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom and not the United States, and that the natives of Hawai‘i are the ones who comprised the majority of the citizenry of the Hawaiian Kingdom as an independent and sovereign State.

•This blog entry has been revised to ensure historical accuracy.

There is much confusion regarding the political term indigenous people and its application or misapplication to the natives of the Hawaiian Islands. But before we can discern and qualify whether or not the natives of Hawai‘i are an indigenous people, we need to begin with definitions. By definition, indigenous is “originating or occurring naturally in a particular place,” whereas aboriginal is “inhabiting or existing in a land from the earliest times,” also referring to human migration as “first to arrive in a region.” According to Hawaiian history, the natives of the Hawaiian Islands, who are Polynesians, did not originate in the islands but rather came from central Polynesia between 1 and 300 A.D.

The term indigenous is common parlance in taxonomy, which is the branch of science concerned with the classification of plants and animals, e.g. the Black Bear is indigenous to the Americas, or the ‘Ohi‘a Lehua plant is indigenous to Hawai‘i. In this use, indigenous and endemic are synonymous. Aboriginal, on the other hand, is associated with migrations. You don’t refer to plants or animals as aboriginal. There are, however, instances of when Native Americans were called indigenous as early as 1838, but this also needs to be understood within the context of race relations at the time. Throughout the nineteenth century, Americans stereotypically referred to Native Americans as savages, even using the words noble and ignoble savage. This was a demeaning label as if Native Americans were animals.

The term indigenous as it applies in a “political context” to different people throughout the world appear to have been first coined in 1972 when the United Nations established a Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. Jose R. Martinez Cobo served as Special Rapporteur and was the author of the Study on the Problem of Discrimination against Indigenous Populations. Cobo was the first to provide the following definition, “Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing on those territories, or parts of them.”

James Anaya, who served as Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, defines indigenous peoples as “living descendants of pre-invasion inhabitants of lands now dominated by others. They are culturally distinct groups that find themselves engulfed by other settler societies born of forces of empire and conquest.” Both Cobo and Anaya refer to countries such as the United States of America and Mexico, where in both countries or States, there pre-existed tribal peoples such as the Apache or the Zapotec. Indigenous peoples would not apply to a State such as Germany because Germanic tribal peoples such as the Teutonic, Suebian or Gothic were the ones that formed the German State as we know it today. They were not invaded or colonized by a State when they were still tribal. This same logic would apply to the Tongan State where it was the Tongan people, who are Polynesian, that established their State that exist today.

On June 27, 1989, the concept of indigenous peoples was adopted by the International Labor Organization in its Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (No. 169), which entered into force on September 5, 1991. Article 1 states: “This Convention applies to: (a) tribal peoples in independent countries whose social, cultural and economic conditions distinguish them from other sections of the national community, and whose status is regulated wholly or partially by their own customs or traditions or by special laws or regulations; (b) peoples in independent countries who are regarded as indigenous on account of their descent from the populations which inhabited the country, or a geological region to the which the country belongs, at the time of conquest or colonization or the establishment of present state boundaries and who, irrespective of their legal status, retain some or all of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions.”

By these definitions, it is clear that indigenous peoples are distinguished from the State they reside in, and the term does not apply to the citizenry of States. In their journal article Indigenous “Sovereignty” and International Law: Revised Strategies for Pursuing “Self-Determination,” Corntassel and Primeau explain that indigenous peoples are viewed not as sovereign States, but rather “any stateless group” residing within the territorial dominions of existing sovereign States [17(2) Human Rights Quarterly 347 (1995)].

On September 13, 2007, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution proclaiming the United Nations’ Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. While the Declaration has no definition of indigenous peoples, it does provide what rights indigenous peoples have within the States. What is clear is that the Declaration distinguishes between indigenous peoples and the State they reside in. In its preamble, the Declaration provides, “Convinced that the recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples in this Declaration will enhance harmonious and cooperative relations between the State and indigenous peoples, based on principles of justice, democracy, respect for human rights, non-discrimination and good faith,” and “Encouraging States to comply with and effectively implement all their obligations as they apply to indigenous peoples under international instruments, in particular those related to human rights, in consultation and cooperation with the peoples concerned.”

The first United States law to identify the natives of the Hawaiian Islands as indigenous is the 1993 joint resolution to acknowledge the 100th anniversary of the January 17, 1893 overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawai‘i, and to offer an apology to Native Hawaiians on behalf of the United States for the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawai‘i. The Apology resolution stated, “Whereas, the indigenous Hawaiian people never directly relinquished their claims to their inherent sovereignty as a people or over their national laws to the United States, either through their monarchy or through a plebiscite or referendum.” In 2011, it was inserted in Act 195—Kana‘iolowalu, where it states, “The Native Hawaiian people are hereby recognized as the only indigenous, aboriginal, maoli people of Hawai‘i.” Act 195 also specifically made reference to the “United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”

This erroneous application of the political term indigenous people upon the natives of the Hawaiian Islands has been the cause of much confusion and assumes that natives never had a sovereign and independent State of their own. Through the explicit acknowledgment by the Permanent Court of Arbitration of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a State from 1999 to 2001, as well as academic and scholarly research, we now know this identification is a complete fabrication.

Since the Hawaiian Kingdom was recognized as a sovereign and independent State in the nineteenth century, the natives comprised its citizenry, which was called Hawaiian subjects. As a nationality, the Hawaiian citizenry was opened to non-natives who were either born on Hawaiian territory (jus soli), or naturalized, which had a residency requirement.

The term that was used to identify the natives amongst the Hawaiian citizenry was aboriginal Hawaiian; and the Hawaiian translation of aboriginal Hawaiian is kanaka maoli as opposed to kanaka Hawai‘i, which is Hawaiian subject. According to the 1890 Hawaiian census, there were 40,622 aboriginal Hawaiians (kanaka maoli), both pure and part, and 7,495 non-aboriginal Hawaiians (kanaka Hawai‘i), which included: 4,117 Portuguese; 1,701 Chinese and Japanese; 1,617 other White foreigners; and 60 other nationalities.

In her will dated October 31, 1883, Princes Bernice Pauahi Bishop set the foundation for the establishment of the Kamehameha Schools to be built in 1887. Article 13 of her will made specific reference to aboriginal Hawaiians, which states, “I direct my trustees to invest the remainder of my estate in such manner as they may think best…in the maintenance of said schools; …and to devote a portion of each years income to the support and education of orphans, and others in indigent circumstances, giving the preference to Hawaiians of pure or part aboriginal blood.” In other words, a person can be Hawaiian who is not “pure or part aboriginal blood.”

A similar provision was in the will of King William Charles Lunalilo who established Lunalilo Home for the Hawaiian elderly. Article 3 of his will dated June 7, 1871, states: “I order the Trustees…to expend the whole amount in the purchase of land and in the erection of a building or buildings on the Island of Oahu, of iron, stone, brick or other fire proof material, for the use and accommodation of poor, destitute and infirm people of Hawaiian (aboriginal) blood or extraction, giving preference to old people.”

Aboriginal Hawaiians are not indigenous people, but remain the majority of the citizenry of a sovereign and independent State—the Hawaiian Kingdom. The rights of the citizens of an occupied State is enshrined under the 1949 Geneva Convention (IV) relative the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, and the 1977 Additional Protocol (I) relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts.

The Hawaiian Kingdom was not invaded or colonized by the United States before it became a State under international law, and therefore its people cannot be considered as indigenous. Instead, international law protects and maintains the continuity of the State despite it being under an illegal and prolonged occupation since the Spanish-American War, which is similar to Germany’s occupation of Luxembourg from 1914-1918 during World War I.

There appears to be some confusion as to what took place at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA). Some contend that the PCA “did not” recognize the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a “State” under international law because the Arbitral Tribunal did not pronounce that the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist. This false contention assumes that the PCA and the Arbitral Tribunal are one and the same entity. The PCA and the Arbitral Tribunal it creates are two separate entities.

In international arbitration, there are two distinct jurisdictions—“jurisdiction of the institution” and “jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal.” In 2003, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development published a module for a course on “Dispute Settlement” that explains how the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) operates, and the two types of jurisdictions is explained on p. 15-16. The PCA is the “institution,” which is separate and distinct from the “arbitral tribunal” it creates. All arbitral tribunals created by the PCA are ad hoc because it depends on the subject of the dispute and who can serve as qualified arbitrators on the tribunal.

Article 26 of the 1899 Hague Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, which established the PCA, states “The jurisdiction of the Permanent Court may, within the conditions laid down in the Regulations, be extended to disputes between non-Signatory Powers, or between Signatory Powers and non-Signatory Powers, if the parties are agreed on recourse to this Tribunal.” This article was superseded by Article 47 of the 1907 Hague Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, which provides, “The jurisdiction of the Permanent Court may, within the conditions laid down in the regulations, be extended to disputes between non-Contracting Powers or between Contracting Powers and non-Contracting Powers, if the parties are agreed on recourse to this Tribunal.” Contracting Powers and non-Contracting Powers are States.

Since 1930, the PCA expanded its jurisdiction to non-States involved with international disputes. According to the rules of the PCA, when an arbitration agreement is submitted to the PCA for dispute-resolution it must be: (1) between two or more States; (2) between a State and an international organization (e.g. United Nations); (3) between a State and a private party; or (4) between an international organization and a private party.

Here are examples of the four types of arbitration cases that have been convened by the Permanent Court of Arbitration.

When the arbitration agreement between Lance Larsen and the Hawaiian Kingdom was submitted to the PCA for dispute resolution, the PCA had to first determine if it had institutional jurisdiction before it could establish an ad hoc arbitral tribunal. In other words, the PCA had to determine whether or not the parties to the arbitration agreement were two States; a State and an international organization; a State and a private entity; or an international organization and a private entity. From November 8, 1999, when the arbitration agreement was submitted to the PCA, to April 2000 when the arbitral tribunal was established, the PCA was doing its due diligence in determining whether or not the Hawaiian Kingdom existed as a State under international law.

It was only after the PCA confirmed the Hawaiian Kingdom does exists as a “State” and Larsen is a “private entity,” it initiated the process to convene the arbitral tribunal. With Mr. Keoni Agard serving as the appointing authority, he worked directly with the PCA who provided him with a list of names and their expertise for consideration by Mr. Larsen and the Hawaiian government. Since the dispute centered on unlawful imposition of American laws within the Hawaiian Kingdom during occupation and that the United States declined the offer to join in the arbitration, the list of arbitral candidates and their expertise focused on these areas.

The Hawaiian government selected Professor Christopher Greenwood, QC, whose expertise focused on the law of occupation. Greenwood was a Professor of International Law at the London School of Economics. His often cited work was “The Administration of Occupied Territory in International Law,” International Law and the Administration of Occupied Territories (Emma Playfair ed., 1992); “International Humanitarian Law (Laws of War)—Revised Report for the Centennial Commemoration of the First Hague Peace Conference 1899,” Centennial of the First International Peace Conference (Frits Kalshoven, 2000).

Ms. Ninia Parks, counsel for Lance Larsen, selected Gavan Griffith, QC, whose expertise focused on indispensable third parties. Griffith was the former Solicitor General of Australia and represented Australia before the International Court of Justice in the East Timor case (Portugal v. Australia) and Nauru case(Nauru v. Australia), where the issue before the ICJ was the principle of indispensable third parties in international proceedings.

Once Mr. Agard was able to confirm the selections with the PCA, these two arbitrators would recommend a person to be the president of the tribunal. Both Greenwood and Griffith nominated ProfessorJames Crawford, SC. Crawford was a Professor of International Law at Lauterpacht Research Centre for International Law, University of Cambridge. He was a member of the United Nations International Law Commission (UNILC) and from 1998-2001 served as Special Rapporteur who was responsible for completing the Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts.

The Hawaiian government was very impressed with the qualifications of Professor Crawford and notified Mr. Agard that it would accept Professor Greenwood and Dr. Griffith’s recommendation for the president. Ms. Ninia Parks, counsel for Larsen, also confirmed the nomination. This is when the arbitral proceedings began and oral hearings held at the PCA in The Hague in December 2000.

In the arbitral award, the Tribunal concluded that it did not have jurisdiction over the dispute on whether the Hawaiian government was negligent for allowing the unlawful imposition of American laws within the Hawaiian Kingdom, which led to the incarceration of Larsen, because the United States was an indispensable third party. In other words, the Hawaiian government prevailed because Mr. Larsen could not come after the Hawaiian government unless the United States was a party to the case. This case was not about whether or not the Hawaiian Kingdom exists as a State, it merely centered on the allegation of negligence on the part of the Hawaiian government.

During the proceedings, the Hawaiian government engaged in artful pleading where it was attempting to have the tribunal, within its rules, to pronounce the existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom in order to address Mr. Larsen’s allegation that it was allowing the unlawful imposition of American laws within Hawaiian territory. The Hawaiian government already knew that the Permanent Court of Arbitration, as an institution, explicitly recognized the Hawaiian Kingdom as a “State,” because if it didn’t, the PCA would not have never convened the Arbitral Tribunal.

https://vimeo.com/17007826

The issue being considered in this case by the “arbitral tribunal” centered on Larsen’s allegation of negligence on the part of the Hawaiian government.  It was not attempting to determine whether or not the Hawaiian Kingdom exists as a State.  The “institution” (PCA) had already made that determination, according to its rules, and determined that it had jurisdiction to proceed to form the arbitral tribunal whose job it was then to investigate the allegation of negligence.

Although, during the proceedings, the Hawaiian government did engage in artful pleading where it attempted to get the “arbitral tribunal” to pronounce, within its rules, the existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom in order to address Mr. Larsen’s allegation that it was allowing the unlawful imposition of American laws within Hawaiian territory.  This attempt was not necessary because the Hawaiian government already knew that the PCA concluded that as an institution it had jurisdiction because it confirmed that the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist as a “State” and that Lance Larsen was a “Private entity.”  The PCA “explicitly” states this in its case view of the Larsen case where it notes “Name(s) of claimant(s) Lance Paul Larsen (Private Entity) Name(s) of respondent(s) The Hawaiian Kingdom (State).”

The Arbitral Tribunal, however, being a separate entity from the PCA, concluded that it did not have jurisdiction over the dispute between the Hawaiian government and its national because the United States government was a necessary third party. If Hawai‘i was the so-called 50th State of the United States, the PCA would have never accepted the case at the onset.