Amici Curiae Challenge Federal Judge Smith’s Order Denying Its Brief in Support of the Kamehameha Schools

Posted on September 13, 2026 by Hawaiian Kingdom

On September 12, 2026, the attorney for Amici Curiae filed a motion for the Court to reconsider its September 4th Order denying Amici Curiae’s brief in support of the Kamehameha Schools. The amici curiae comprise of sixty-eight scholars and academics, along with the Hawaiian Kingdom Council of Regency, from eleven countries. Four of the amici are scholars of international law.

Amicus curiae is Latin for friend of the court. If there is more than one person, the filing is called an amici curiae or friends of the court. In the American court system, an amici curiae are individuals who are not a party to the case but have a particular expertise that can assist the judge in making a consequential decision. Thus, they are called friends of the court. These kinds of briefs are important because they provide expert knowledge, highlight the broader real-world consequences of a potential ruling, and help judges make fully informed decisions.

In their brief, the amici explain why the Court is not legal because it is operating within the territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom, a country that still exists since the nineteenth century despite the unlawful overthrow of its government by U.S. troops on January 17, 1893. However, the amici state that the Court can make itself legal by transforming into an occupation court, under the law of occupation, that would administer Hawaiian Kingdom law in order for the Defendant Kamehameha Schools to have a fair trial.

At present, the Court and the Plaintiff Students for Fair Admissions are operating under American law, which the amici point out is the war crime of usurpation of sovereignty. Amici conclude their brief by stating if the Court does not begin to comply with international law and the law of occupation it would be committing the war crimes of usurpation of sovereignty and depriving Kamehameha Schools of a fair trial.

According to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a motion for reconsideration is allowed if the Court committed a manifest error by applying a wrong legal standard. The motion argues the court committed a manifest error of law by misapplying Jones v. United States. In this case, the U.S. Supreme Court stated, “Who is the sovereign, de jure or de facto, of a territory is not a judicial, but a political question, the determination of which by the legislative and executive departments of any government conclusively binds the judges, as well as all other officers, citizens, and subjects of that government.”

The amici stated in their motion that the executive branch of the U.S. did “determine” the Hawaiian Kingdom as the sovereign over the Hawaiian Islands when it recognized it as an independent State. Amici then state:

What followed were the 1849 Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between the Hawaiian Kingdom at the United States (9 Stat. 977); the 1875 Treaty of Reciprocity (19 Stat. 625); the 1883 Postal Convention Concerning Money Orders (23 Stat. 736); the 1884 Supplementary Convention to the 1875 Treaty of Reciprocity (25 Stat. 1399); and the establishment of the Hawaiian Legation in Washington, D.C., and the United States Legation in Honolulu, to include both establishing Consulates in both countries.

Also, the amici curiae provided, in their brief, clear and undeniable evidence, under international law, that the United States executive branch, by its Embassy at The Hague, recognized the Hawaiian Kingdom’s continued existence as a State since the nineteenth century and the Council of Regency as its interim government during arbitration proceedings at the Permanent Court of Arbitration, in Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom, 119 International Law Reports 566 (2001), under customary international law grounded on opinio juris (Doc. 157, p. 40-41), and by treaty under the 2000 Sai-Clinton agreement (Id., p. 37-39). These are contemporary determinations made by the executive branch of the United States that conclusively binds this Court and the Plaintiff Students for Fair Admissions pursuant to Jones.

The amici argued that the Court misapplied the legal standard set by the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Jones as if the executive branch did not recognize the Hawaiian Kingdom as an independent State and sovereign over the Hawaiian Islands. Because the U.S. executive made these determinations of the Hawaiian Kingdom as an independent State since the nineteenth century it is not a political question, and that such determinations are binding on the Court and Students for Fair Admissions because the plaintiff are citizens of the United States. In its Order the Court disregarded the actions taken by the executive branch as if it never occurred. Thus, the Court is wrongly claiming it is still a political question as to who the sovereign over the Hawaiian Islands is.

In its Order, the Court also claims that it is “bound to accept the lawfulness of the government of the United States and the applicability of its laws” in the State of Hawai‘i. The amici assert that U.S. laws, which includes the law establishing the State of Hawai‘i in 1959, have no effect outside of the United States, as stated by the U.S. Supreme Court in two cases.

In United States v. Curtiss-Wright Corp., the Supreme Court stated, “Neither the [federal] Constitution nor the [federal] 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.” In The Apollon, it stated, “The laws of no nation can justly extend beyond its own territories except so far as regards its own citizens. They can have no force to control the sovereignty or rights of any other nation within its own jurisdiction.”

The amici state that imposing U.S. laws in the Hawaiian Kingdom is a violation of international humanitarian law and the law of occupation, amounting to the war crime of usurpation of sovereignty during occupation.

The motion also critiques the Court’s disregard of the Lorenzo principle, which places the burden on defendants to prove the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom. In 2014, the State of Hawai‘i Supreme Court, in State of Hawai‘i v. Armitage, stated:

Lorenzo held that, for jurisdictional purposes, should a defendant demonstrate a factual or legal basis that the Kingdom of Hawai‘i “exists as a state in accordance with recognized attributes of a state’s sovereign nature[,]” and that he or she is a citizen of that sovereign state, a defendant may be able to argue that the courts of the State of Hawai‘i lack jurisdiction over him or her.

Amici, show that this legal standard has applied to all State of Hawai‘i courts for the past thirty-two years and applies to the U.S. District Courts in Hawai‘i for the past twenty-four years. Amici provided sufficient factual and legal evidence of the Kingdom’s continued existence, and that the Court erred by disregarding the binding nature of the Lorenzo principle. The amici stated:

Neither did the State of Hawai‘i Intermediate Court of Appeals in Lorenzo, the State of Hawai‘i Supreme Court in Armitage, nor did Judge Ezra in United States v. Goo, invoke Jones. For the Court now to invoke Jones is a blatant manifest error of law that runs counter to the Lorenzo principle that has bound U.S. District Courts in Hawai‘i for the past 24 years.

Under international law, there is a legal principle of the presumption of State continuity, even under occupation. In its motion that amici state:

“[t]here is a presumption that the State continues to exist, with its rights and obligations […] despite a period in which there is no, or no effective, government,” and that “belligerent occupation does not affect the continuity of the State, even where there exists no government claiming to represent the occupied State.” Judge Crawford further points out that “the presumption—in practice a strong one—is in favour of the continuance, and against the extinction, of an established state.” See James Crawford, The Creation of States in International Law 417 (1979). Consequently, “[i]f one were to speak about a presumption of continuity, one would suppose that an obligation would lie upon the party opposing that continuity to establish the facts substantiating its rebuttal. The continuity of the Hawaiian Kingdom, in other words, may be refuted only by reference to a valid demonstration of legal title, or sovereignty, on the part of the United States.”

Consequently, Lorenzo and Armitage erred when it placed the burden on the defendant because under international law that burden is placed on the Plaintiff or the Judge who oppose that continuity to provide rebuttable evidence that the Hawaiian Kingdom has ceased to exist as a State under international law. Failure to provide rebuttable evidence the presumption of Hawaiian State continuity remains. By disregarding the facts and international law, the Court committed manifest error of law by not properly applying the Lorenzo principle and providing no rebuttable evidence as to the presumption of Hawaiian State continuity and the evidence provided by the amici curiae in its brief.

These arguments, by the amici, collectively challenge the court’s jurisdiction and the application of U.S. law in Hawai‘i, grounding their claims in both U.S. and international law, and emphasizing the ongoing legal status of the Hawaiian Kingdom. The amici conclude its motion with:

Under international humanitarian law and the law of occupation, the Court is obligated to transform itself into an Article II occupation court so that it can administer Hawaiian Kingdom law that protect the rights of the Defendant Kamehameha Schools, unless the Court can provide rebuttable evidence that the Hawaiian Kingdom is not the de jure sovereign over the Hawaiian Islands, which it has not done. Until there is rebuttable evidence, this Court IS situated within the territorial jurisdiction of the Hawaiian Kingdom and NOT within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.

The burden is on the Court, pursuant to Curtiss-Wright Corp., to provide evidence that the Hawaiian Kingdom ceases to exist as a State, under international law, by reference to “treaties, international understandings and compacts, and the principles of international law.” And Curtiss-Wright Corp. precludes the Court from referencing “the [federal] Constitution [or] the [federal] laws passed in pursuance of it,” because it has no “force in foreign territory.” In its Order denying amici curiae’s motion for leave to file amici curiae brief, the Court could have, sua sponte, provided rebuttable evidence as to the presumption of Hawaiian State continuity and evidence provided in the amici curiae’s brief, but it did not.

Therefore, the Court’s willful act not to transform into an Article II occupation court would be a violation of international humanitarian law and the law of occupation, and, consequently, would constitute the commission of the war crimes of usurpation of sovereignty during occupation and deprivation of fair and regular trial, thereby making the Defendant Kamehameha Schools a war crime victim. Under international law, the Council of Regency, as the interim government of the Hawaiian Kingdom, has a duty and obligation to investigate war crimes committed within Hawaiian territory. See David Keanu Sai, “All States have a Responsibility to Protect their Population from War Crimes—Usurpation of Sovereignty During Military Occupation of the Hawaiian Islands,” 6(2) International Review of Contemporary Law 72-81 (2024).

Dr. Keanu Sai on BrotherLee Time Podcast

Posted on September 11, 2026 by Hawaiian Kingdom

AS AN OCCUPIED STATE, HAWAI‘I WAS NEVER A PART OF THE UNITED STATES—Hawaiian Council of Regency and 67 Scholars and Academics from 11 Countries file Amici Brief with U.S. District Court in Hawai‘i in Support of the Kamehameha Schools

Posted on September 2, 2026 by Hawaiian Kingdom

Students for Fair Admissions filed a federal lawsuit in October 2025 challenging the long-standing admissions policy of Kamehameha Schools in Hawaiʻi that grants enrollment preference to pure and part aboriginal Hawaiian students. The Kamehameha Schools is a private estate established by the probate court of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1885 under the last will and testament of High Chiefess Bernice Pauahi Bishop. The admission policy was the intent of High Chiefess Mrs. Bishop that began in 1887.

The Hawaiian Kingdom Council of Regency, the restored government of the Hawaiian Kingdom, along with 66 scholars and academics from 11 countries, have filed an amici brief in support of the defendant Kamehameha Schools.

Amicus curiae is Latin for friend of the court. If there is more than one person, the filing is called an amici curiae or friends of the court. In the American court system, an amici curiae are individuals who are not a party to the case but have a particular expertise that can assist the judge in making a consequential decision. Thus, they are called friends of the court. These kinds of briefs are important because they provide expert knowledge, highlight the broader real world consequences of a potential ruling, and help judges make fully informed decisions.

Minister Dr. David Keanu Sai and Professor Federico Lenzerini authored the amici brief. Minister Dr. Sai is Chairman of the Council of Regency and is a Senior Lecturer in Political Science and Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawai‘i Windward Community College and an affiliate faculty at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa College of Education graduate program. Dr. Sai is also a recognized scholar with his recent publication by Oxford University Press “Hawai‘i’s Sovereignty and Survival in the Age of Empire.” Professor Lenzerini is a full Professor of International Law, Human Rights and International Organization, at the University of Siena, Italy, Department of Political and International Sciences.

An additional 66 amici with doctoral degrees joined in on the brief. Under the heading of “Interests of Amici Curiae,” it states,

Amici curiae, Minister Dr. David Keanu Sai, Ph.D., and Professor Federico Lenzerini, Ph.D., international scholars whose views are represented in this brief, along with attesting amici curiae Professors Prabhakar Singh, Ph.D., and Alfred de Zayas, Ph.D., have expertise in public international law, international human rights, international humanitarian law, and international norms regarding statehood and sovereignty, self-determination and the rule of law. The remaining amici have joined solely representing themselves as doctoral degree recipients that understand the highest level of academic and legal research, and attest the amici brief to be factual and true. Amici are from eleven countries—France, Germany, Hawaiian Kingdom, India, Italy, Japan, Palestine, Philippines, Solomon Islands, Switzerland, and the United States. All amici have an interest in ensuring an informed interpretation by the Court of the consequences that international humanitarian law, the law of occupation, and international criminal law have on its jurisdiction.

The amici states that U.S. federal courts (Article III courts) lack jurisdiction in Hawaiian territory under international law, unless acting as Article II occupation courts during military occupation. International law, including treaties and customary law must be enforced by U.S. courts established in foreign territory that is under an American occupation. The Hawaiian Kingdom is an occupied State.

Article III courts are referred to as the third branch of government in the U.S. Constitution. Article II occupation courts are referred to the second branch of government called the executive branch that stems from the President’s authority over U.S. forces in occupied territories. Article I courts are referred to as the first branch of government, which are courts established by the Congress such as bankruptcy courts.

The amici state that the Hawaiian Kingdom was recognized as an independent State in the nineteenth century by the U.S. and other nations. The 1893 overthrow of the government of the Hawaiian Kingdom by U.S. forces is described as illegal and an act of war, with no valid treaty of cession transferring sovereignty to the U.S. Consequently, U.S. congressional acts, such as the “annexation resolution” in 1898, Hawai‘i territorial status in 1900, and Hawai‘i statehood in 1959, have no legal effect outside U.S. territory and do not lawfully transfer U.S. sovereignty over the Hawaiian Islands. Amici states that international law presumes the continued existence of an independent State even if its government is militarily overthrown or absent.

The amici explain that what was overthrown, albeit illegally, was the government of the Hawaiian Kingdom and not the Hawaiian Kingdom as a State. This is why when the Iraqi government was militarily overthrown by U.S. forces in April of 2003, the Iraqi State and its sovereignty continued to exist during the Second Gulf War, widely known as the Iraq War. During the American occupation, Iraqi sovereignty and laws, not American sovereignty and laws, continued to be enforced by the American led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). The status of the CPA was a provisional government under U.S. military occupation. According to paragraph 353 of U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10:

Belligerent occupation in a foreign war, being based upon the possession of enemy territory, necessarily implies that the sovereignty of the occupied territory is not vested in the occupying power. Occupation is essentially provisional. On the other hand, subjugation or conquest implies transfer of sovereignty, which generally takes the form of annexation and is normally affected by a treaty of peace.

The amici state, in the case of the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom government on January 17, 1893, that U.S. forces did not administer Hawaiian Kingdom law but rather allowed the provisional government to pretend to be a government who created draconian laws. President Cleveland branded the provisional government as a puppet of the United States. On December 18, 1893, the President stated to the Congress that the “provisional government owes its existence to an armed invasion by the United States.”

Five years later, the United States Congress passed a joint resolution purporting to have unilaterally annexed the Hawaiian Islands during the Spanish-American War. Since 1898, the United States began to unlawfully impose American laws over the territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom in violation of international law, Hawaiian Kingdom law, the law of occupation, and U.S. law.

The amici also draw attention to a legal opinion by the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel in 1988, that concluded Congress did not have the authority to annex the Hawaiian Islands, being a foreign country, by enacting a joint resolution. The legal opinion also stated that only “by means of treaties can the relations between States be governed, for a legislative act is necessarily without extraterritorial force—confined in its operation to the territory of the State by whose legislature it is enacted.” There has never been any treaty of cession of the Hawaiian Kingdom’s sovereignty and territory to the United States.

The amici states that in 1997, a Council of Regency was established under the Hawaiian Constitution to serve as the acting government in the absence of a monarch. Amici further affirm that the Council of Regency has legitimate authority to represent the Hawaiian Kingdom domestically and internationally. And that according to international law, under the 1978 Vienna Convention on Succession of States in respect of Treaties, the Hawaiian Kingdom currently has treaties with 92 Member States of the United Nations, of which 12 treaties are with the original States, and 80 treaties are with their successor States.

The amici also draw attention to an international arbitration case that came before the Permanent Court of Arbitration, The Hague, Netherlands, from 1999-2001. Before the arbitration proceedings began, the Permanent Court recognized the Hawaiian Kingdom as an independent State for the purposes of the Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom case (1999-2001), and the U.S. entered into an executive agreement (the 2000 Sai-Clinton agreement) regarding access to case records. Under international law and U.S. law, an executive agreement is a treaty.

The Permanent Court’s recognition and the lack of objection from 129 Member States of the Permanent Court, to include the United States, was presented as evidence of these States’ recognition of the Hawaiian Kingdom’s continued legal existence and the Council of Regency as its government. Together with the Hawaiian Kingdom treaty partners and their successor States, 185 of these States are also Members of the United Nations that recognize the Hawaiian Kingdom’s continued existence by treaties and customary international law. The current membership of the United Nations is 193 States.

The amici bring to the attention of the Court the Lorenzo principle that has been in effect since 2002. In the Federal courts in Hawai‘i, the Lorenzo principle sets an evidentiary standard for those claiming the federal court lack’s jurisdiction because of the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom. The Lorenzo principle stems from a 1994 State of Hawai‘i Appellate decision in State of Hawai‘i v. Lorenzo that set that evidentiary burden.

In 2014, the Supreme Court, in State of Hawai‘i v. Armitage, clarified the evidentiary burden that Lorenzo placed upon defendants. The Supreme Court stated, “Lorenzo held that, for jurisdictional purposes, should a defendant demonstrate a factual or legal basis that the Kingdom of Hawai‘i ‘exists as a state in accordance with recognized attributes of a state’s sovereign nature,’ and that he or she is a citizen of that sovereign state, a defendant may be able to argue that the courts of the State of Hawai‘i lack jurisdiction over him or her.” The amici state that they have met the evidentiary burden, under the Lorenzo principle, proving the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist as a State under international law.

Amici state that the imposition of U.S. laws and administrative policies in Hawai‘i is the war crime of usurpation of sovereignty during occupation under international law. Denial of a fair and regular trial to protected persons, like Kamehameha Schools, in occupied territory is also described by the amici as a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, which is also a war crime.

The amici urge the Court to recognize U.S. obligations under international law and to transform itself into an Article II occupation court, rather than remaining as an Article III court, when sitting in the territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Amici further state that for the Court not to comply with international law, war crimes would be committed. In its closing, the amici state:

For the foregoing reasons, amici request that the Court consider U.S. obligations under international law when sitting in the territory of an occupied State, in evaluating the prolonged occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom since 1893. The amici urge the Court to also evaluate the amici curiae brief filed by the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, the National Lawyers Guild, and the Water Protector Legal Collective, which is enclosed herein as Exhibit 2, so as to enhance its own understanding of why the Court must transform itself from an Article III court to an Article II occupation court.

The filed amici curiae brief is available online.

CONTACT:

Hawaiian Kingdom files Additional Evidence from the International Seabed Authority of its Legal Standing as a Government in the Kamehameha Schools Federal Lawsuit

Posted on March 16, 2026 by Hawaiian Kingdom

On January 23, 2026, U.S. District Judge Micah Smith issue an order denying the Council of Regency of the Hawaiian Kingdom’s Motion to Intervene in the federal lawsuit Students for Fair Admissions v. Kamehameha Schools. The Council of Regency is intervening as the government of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

The lawsuit, brought by Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), seeks to dismantle the Native Hawaiian admissions policy of Kamehameha Schools—an institution created by Aliʻi Bernice Pauahi Bishop to uplift and educate Hawaiian children. SFFA claims that Kamehameha Schools’ policy violates U.S. civil rights law and is premised on the assertion that Hawaiʻi was lawfully annexed and fully absorbed into the United States more than a century ago.

The Council of Regency’s intervention is necessary because this case is built on fundamental historical and legal inaccuracies that neither party before the Court can correct. At stake is not only the future of Kamehameha Schools, but the integrity of Hawaiian Kingdom law, the rights of the Hawaiian people, and the protection of future generations who were the express beneficiaries of Pauahi’s trust.

U.S. civil rights law, which includes all U.S. laws and administrative measures, cannot be imposed within the territory of the occupied Hawaiian Kingdom, which constitutes the war crime of usurpation of sovereignty during military occupation. The United States has recognized usurpation of sovereignty during military occupation as a war crime since the First World War.

As an occupied State, only Hawaiian Kingdom law applies in this case, which allows preferential admissions to Hawaiian children. The Council of Regency is intervening to protect Kamehameha Schools, which was called the Bishop Estate in the nineteenth century.

Kamehameha Schools was created under the laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom in the nineteenth century, at a time when Hawaiʻi was an internationally recognized sovereign State with treaties, diplomats, and a functioning constitutional government. Pauahi’s will was accepted by the Hawaiian Kingdom probate court in 1885—years before the illegal overthrow of the government of Queen Liliʻuokalani on January 17, 1893. Those laws did not disappear with the arrival of U.S. troops.

Under international law, the overthrow of a government does not extinguish the State itself. In 1997, the government of the Hawaiian Kingdom was restored as a Regency under Hawaiian constitutional law and the legal doctrine of necessity.

On February 3, 2026, the Council of Regency, as interim government of the Hawaiian Kingdom, filed its Motion for Reconsideration with the United States District Court for the District of Hawai‘i, seeking reconsideration of Judge Smith’s order denying the Hawaiian Kingdom’s Motion to Intervene in the federal lawsuit filed on January 21, 2026.

The Hawaiian Kingdom argues that Judge Smith committed “manifest errors of law” including its misapplication of the political question doctrine at the intervention stage. The political question doctrine bars federal courts from adjudicating disputes that are “textually committed” by the U.S. Constitution to another branch or lack judicially manageable standards to resolve. In the case of Hawai‘i, the court invoked this doctrine because it falsely asserted that the United States executive branch has not recognized the Hawaiian Kingdom. In this case, the Hawaiian Kingdom provides conclusive evidence that Judge Smith’s order is a “manifest error.”

In its motion for reconsideration, the Council of Regency provided two explicit evidence that the United States recognized the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a State and the Council of Regency as its interim government during international arbitration proceedings at the Permanent Court. The first piece of evidence is when the United States entered into an executive agreement with the Council of Regency, called the 2000 Sai-Clinton agreement, for it to have access to all records and pleadings of the international arbitration case of Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom at the Permanent Court of Arbitration from 1999-2001.

The second piece of evidence is under opinio juris—customary international law, when it did not object to the Permanent Court’s recognition of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the Council of Regency before it formed the arbitration tribunal on June 9, 2000. By not objecting, the United States accepted the Permanent Court’s recognition of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the Council of Regency. Here is a link to a memorandum that explains the circumstances of this evidence under international law published by the Hawaiian Kingdom’s Foreign Ministry.

On the matter of opinio juris—customary international law, none of the current 127 Contracting States to the treaty that formed the Permanent Court, to include the United States, objected to the Permanent Court’s conclusion that the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist and that it is a non-Contracting State under Article 47 of the treaty permitting the Hawaiian Kingdom access to the Permanent Court. Article 47 states, the “jurisdiction of the Permanent Court may…be extended to disputes [with] non-Contracting Powers.” In international law, “Powers” is used interchangeably with “States.”

Under opinio juris, the practice of the Permanent Court includes its case description on its website that was not objected to by the United States. It states:

Lance Paul Larsen, a resident of Hawaii, brought a claim against the Hawaiian Kingdom by its Council of Regency (“Hawaiian Kingdom”) on the grounds that the Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom is in continual violation of: (a) its 1849 Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation with the United States of America, as well as the principles of international law laid down in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969 and (b) the principles of international comity, for allowing the unlawful imposition of American municipal laws over the claimant’s person within the territorial jurisdiction of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

The case description by the Permanent Court states that the Council of Regency is the government of the Hawaiian Kingdom. The 1849 Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation with the United States of America continues to exist, and the imposition of American laws within Hawaiian territory is “unlawful.”

On February 16, 2026, the Hawaiian Kingdom filed its motion for leave to file supplemental brief in support of motion for reconsideration that provided additional evidence of the Council of Regency being the interim government of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

Added to the Permanent Court, is the recognition of the Hawaiian Kingdom by the International Seabed Authority (ISA). In a formal letter, dated March 3, 2026, from the ISA’s Secretary General, Letitia Carvalho, to Hawaiian Kingdom Minister of Foreign Affairs ad interim, Dr. David Keanu Sai, Ph.D., the ISA recognized the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a State since the nineteenth century and its status as an Observer State. In her letter, the Secretary General clarifies the rules and practice of the ISA for a State to acquire observer status under Rule 82 of the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly of the ISA.

The ISA is an international organization that is composed of representatives of States that are Contracting States to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The headquarters of the ISA is in Kingston, Jamaica, where the Council and the Assembly of the ISA meet in session. Currently, the membership of the ISA is comprised of the European Union and 171 Contracting States to the UNCLOS.

According to Civil Beat, “Leticia Carvalho, the secretary-general of the ISA, said last week that she wants to finalize global rules governing seabed mining by the end of this year, a reversal of her previous position that the regulations could take several years to finalize, in part a reaction to President Donald Trump’s aggressive push to mine both U.S. and international waters outside the international regulatory framework.”

On March 5, 2026, Minister Dr. Sai provided a formal letter to the Secretary General acknowledging receipt of her letter, as requested, and thanking her for the ISA’s recognition of the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a State since the nineteenth century and the Council of Regency as its interim government.

On March 10, the Council of Regency filed a Motion for Leave to file Letters Supplement in Support of Motion for Reconsideration. These letters from the ISA Secretary General and the Hawaiian Kingdom’s Minister of Foreign Affairs affirm the legal standing of the Council of Regency as the government of the Hawaiian Kingdom, which is at the core of the Hawaiian Kingdom’s Motion for Reconsideration. The legal standing of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the Council of Regency, as its interim government, prevents Judge Smith from invoking the political question doctrine.

Neutrality Studies Podcast: From the Ocean to the Sea, Hawaii will be Free | Dr. Keanu Sai

Posted on March 13, 2026 by Hawaiian Kingdom

Dr. Keanu Sai was again invited to do a podcast interview by Professor Pascal Lottaz on the subject of the American occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom, a Neutral State. Professor Lottaz is an Assistant Professor for Neutrality Studies at the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study in Tokyo. He is a also a researcher at Neutrality Studies, where its YouTube channel, which airs their podcasts, has 153,000 subscribers worldwide.

The first podcast was titled “EX-Army Officer WAGES LAWFARE To End Illegal Occupation of Hawaii” that was posted December 5, 2024.

BREAKING NEWS: International Seabed Authority Recognizes the Hawaiian Kingdom

Posted on March 10, 2026 by Hawaiian Kingdom

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 10, 2026:

In a formal letter, dated March 3, 2026, from the International Seabed Authority’s (ISA) Secretary General, Letitia Carvalho, to Hawaiian Kingdom Minister of Foreign Affairs ad interim, Dr. David Keanu Sai, Ph.D., the ISA recognized the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a State since the nineteenth century and its status as an Observer State. In her letter, the Secretary General clarifies the rules and practice of the ISA for a State to acquire observer status under Rule 82 of the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly of the ISA.

The ISA is an international organization that is composed of representatives of States that are Contracting States to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The headquarters of the ISA is in Kingston, Jamaica, where the Council and the Assembly of the ISA meet in session. Currently, the membership of the ISA is comprised of the European Union and 171 Contracting States to the UNCLOS.

According to its website, the “ISA is the organization through which States Parties to UNCLOS organize and control all mineral-resources-related activities in the Area for the benefit of humankind as a whole. In so doing, ISA has the mandate to ensure the effective protection of the marine environment from harmful effects that may arise from deep-seabed-related activities.”

For those States that have not acceded to the UNCLOS, participation is allowed if the States are granted observer status. While the Observer State is permitted to participate in the meetings, it has no voting rights. There are currently 27 Observer States that includes the United States.

Rule 82(a) of the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly provides “States and entities referred to in article 305 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea which are not members of the Authority,” can participate as Observers. Article 305(a) of the UNCLOS provides “all States” can become a Contracting State to the Convention. Though it is not yet a Contracting State and member to the UNCLOS pursuant to Article 305(a) of the Convention, the Hawaiian Kingdom has been acknowledged by the ISA as a State, as referred to in article 305 of the UNCLOS, and is consequently qualified to apply for participation as an “Observer” in meetings of the Assembly and of the Council of the ISA.

Since June of 2025, Minister Dr. Sai, in his official capacity as Minister of Foreign Affairs ad interim of the Hawaiian Kingdom, was in communication with the ISA that led to the formal recognition of the Hawaiian Kingdom by the ISA on March 3, 2026.

In Minister Dr. Sai’s letter to Secretary General Carvalho, dated June 30, 2025, he stated, “The purpose of this letter is two-fold: first, to explain the circumstances of the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom for the purposes of international law and its impact on ISA members who are successor States of Hawaiian Kingdom treaty partners; and second, for the Hawaiian Kingdom to provide you notice of our intent to accede to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the 1994 Agreement relating to the implementation of Part XI of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 (with annex).”

Minister Dr. Sai sent a communication, dated July 28, 2025, to Ms. Mariana Durney, Legal Counsel and Director of the Office of Legal Counsel for the ISA, that provided the factual and legal basis for the Hawaiian Kingdom’s continued existence as a State, under international law, since the nineteenth century, and the Council of Regency as its interim government, so that it can pursue Observer State status under Rule 82 of the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly.

In a communication, dated September 2, 2025, to Secretary General Carvalho, Minister Dr. Sai stated, “Pending the Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom accession to these international agreements and, thereby, becomes a Member State of the International Seabed Authority, we request observer status as a State in accordance with Article 305(1)(a) of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and Rule 82(1)(a) of the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly of the International Seabed Authority.”

On March 3, 2026, Minister Dr. Sai received an email, with an enclosed letter, from Ms. Durney, explaining the process by which the Hawaiian Kingdom, as a Non-Contracting State to the UNCLOS, needs to do in order to be granted Observer State status under Rule 82 (a) of the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly. In Ms. Durney’s letter, she referred to Minister Dr. Sai as “H.E. Dr. David Keanu Sai, Ph.D., Minister of Foreign Affairs ad interim, Hawaiian Kingdom.”

Later that day of the same date, Minister Dr. Sai received an email, with an enclosed “formal letter,” from Secretary General Carvalho clarifying the rules and practice for a State to participate in meetings of the ISA as an observer.

According to the United Nations Correspondence Manual, “Formal letters are those employing diplomatic style and phraseology. Normally such letters are addressed only to heads of State or heads of Government, ministers for foreign affairs and [Ambassadors].” And that “Formal letters to ministers for foreign affairs […] should, as a rule, include the name of the addressee in the address. The address should also contain full personal titles such “His Excellency.” Here is an example of a formal letter from the Secretary General of United Nations to a Minister of Foreign Affairs.

In her formal letter to Minister Dr. Sai, Secretary General Carvalho stated:

On March 5, 2026, Minister Dr. Sai acknowledged receipt of Secretary General Carvalho’s communication, dated March 3, 2026. In his letter to the Secretary General, Minster Dr. Sai stated:

Excellency:

This letter acknowledges your email, of 3 March 2026, which enclosed your letter of the same date, and the email from Ms. Mariana Durney, Legal Counsel and Director of the Office of Legal Counsel, of 3 March 2026, which enclosed her letter of the same date. I wish to thank you for Your Excellency’s recognition of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a State, under customary international law, since the nineteenth century, despite the prolonged nature of the belligerent occupation, by the United States of America, that began on 17 January 1893.

The International Seabed Authority’s recognition is consistent with the recognitions of the Hawaiian Kingdom by the Permanent Court of Arbitration during arbitral proceedings in Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom from 1999 to 2001, by the United States’ recognition of the Hawaiian Kingdom under the 2000 Sai-Clinton agreement, a treaty under international law, and by the 127 Contracting States to the 1907 Hague Convention, I, for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes that established the Permanent Court, under opinio juris.

Of the 169 Member States of the International Seabed Authority, 111 of these States are also Member States of the Permanent Court, to wit: Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, Congo, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czechia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia, Eswatini, Fiji, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, North, Macedonia, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Romania, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, State of Palestine, Sudan, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Uruguay, Vanuatu, Viet Nam, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. And there are 15 Observer States that are also Member States of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, to wit: Cambodia, Colombia, El Salvador, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Israel, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Liechtenstein, Peru, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United States of America, and Venezuela.

My communication of 28 July 2025 to Ms. Durney, provided her the factual and legal basis of the Hawaiian Kingdom’s continued existence as a State, under customary international law, and the restoration of the government by a Council of Regency under Hawaiian constitutional law and the legal doctrine of necessity, so that it can pursue Observer State status under rule 82 of the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly of the International Seabed Authority.

I wish to thank you for your clarification of the rules and practices of the International Seabed Authority regarding observer status. The Hawaiian Kingdom intends to pursue its observer status accordingly so that its Special Envoy can be accredited to participate in meetings of the Assembly or the Council under Rule 82 of the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly.

Please accept, Excellency, the expression of my highest consideration.

[signed]
H.E. David Keanu Sai, Ph.D.
Minister of Foreign Affairs ad interim
Her Excellency Letitia Carvalho
Secretary General of the International Seabed Authority
14-20 Port Royal Street
Kingston, Jamaica

“The recognition of the Hawaiian Kingdom’s continued existence as a State under international law by the Secretary General of the International Seabed Authority is a significant act taken by a reputable international body represented by 171 countries,” stated Minister Dr. Sai. He explained, “The Hawaiian Kingdom took deliberate steps to become accredited as an Observer State so that it can participate in meetings of the International Seabed Authority, because its fisheries and marine environment in its 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone has been unlawfully exploited by the United States for over a century.”

Minister Dr. Sai also stated, “The Hawaiian Kingdom will now proceed toward securing Observer State status so that its Special Envoy can participate in the meetings of the Council and the Assembly of the ISA in the very near future.”

MEDIA CONTACT:

Dr. David “Keanu” Sai, Ph.D.
Chairman of the Council of Regency
Acting Minister of the Interior
Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs ad interim
Email: interior@hawaiiankingdom.org

The Significance of the 2000 Sai-Clinton Agreement—A Treaty under International Law

Posted on February 21, 2026 by Hawaiian Kingdom

In April of 2000 began an exchange of diplomatic notes between the Hawaiian Kingdom Government and the United States Government, and between the Hawaiian Kingdom Government and the Permanent Court of Arbitration, The Hague, Netherlands. International arbitration proceedings were initiated by Lance Larsen’s legal counsel filing a notice of arbitration with the Permanent Court on November 8, 1999. At the center of the international dispute was the allegation by the claimant—Larsen, that the respondent—the Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom was liable “for allowing the unlawful imposition of American municipal laws over the claimant’s person within the territorial jurisdiction of the Hawaiian Kingdom.”

Before the arbitral tribunal was formed by the Permanent Court on June 9, 2000, in Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom, Tjaco T. van den Hout, Secretary General of the Permanent Court, spoke with the Chairman of the Council of Regency, David Keanu Sai, who served as agent for the Hawaiian Kingdom, over the telephone and recommended that the Hawaiian Government provide an invitation to the United States to join in the arbitration.

On April 3, 2000, the first diplomatic note was delivered by Chairman Sai to John R. Crook, Assistant Legal Adviser, United States Department of State. This note covered a conference call meeting in Washington, D.C., on that day between Chairman Sai, Crook, and Ms. Ninia Parks, legal counsel for Lance Larsen, where the Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom provided a formal invitation for the United States to join in international arbitration proceedings already in train at the Permanent Court, in Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom.

A copy of the note was sent to the Permanent Court’s Registry for record that the United States was invited to join in the arbitral proceedings. Under international law, this note served as an offering instrument that contained the following language:

[T]he reason for our visit was the offer by the…Hawaiian Kingdom, by consent of the Claimant [Larsen], by his attorney, Ms. Ninia Parks, for the United States Government to join in the arbitral proceedings presently instituted under the auspices of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, Netherlands. … [T]he State Department should review the package in detail and can get back to the Acting Council of Regency by phone for continued dialogue. I gave you our office’s phone number…, of which you acknowledged. I assured you that we did not need an immediate answer, but out of international courtesy the offer is still open, notwithstanding arbitral proceedings already in motion. I also advised you that Secretary-General van den Hout of the Permanent Court of Arbitration was aware of our travel to Washington, D.C. and the offer to join in the arbitration. As I stated in our conversation he requested that the dialogue be reduced to writing and filed with the International Bureau of the Permanent Court of Arbitration for the record, and you acknowledged.

Thereafter, the Permanent Court’s Deputy Secretary General, Phyllis Hamilton, informed Chairman Sai over the phone that Cynthia Perrin Schneider, Ambassador of the United States to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, notified the Hawaiian Kingdom, through the Permanent Court, that the United States declined the invitation to join the arbitral proceedings. Ambassador Schneider was representing Bill Clinton, President of the United States. Instead, the United States requested permission from the Hawaiian Government to have access to the pleadings and records of the Larsen case at the Registry of the Permanent Court. Chairman Sai consented to this request. The Permanent Court, represented by the Deputy Secretary General, served as an intermediary to secure an agreement, by exchange of notes, between the Hawaiian Kingdom and the United States.

According to Johst Wilmanns, in his article “Note Verbale,” published in the Encyclopedia of Public International Law, “Legally there is no difference between a formal note, a note verbale and a memorandum. They are all communications which become legally operative upon the arrival at the addressee. The legal effects depend on the substance of the note, which may relate to any field of international relations.” And according to Cendric van Assche, in her chapter “1969 Vienna Convention,” in The Vienna Conventions on the Law of Treaties, A Commentary, “the exchange of two notes […] constituting an agreement satisfies the definition of the term ‘treaty’ as provided by Article 2(1)(a) of the Vienna Convention.”

This treaty providing permission for the United States to access all records and pleadings of the Larsen case at the Registry of the Permanent Court is called the 2000 Sai-Clinton agreement. Coincident with this treaty is the recognition of the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom since the nineteenth century and the Council of Regency as its interim government. The 2000 Sai-Clinton agreement has similar parallels to the 1933 Roosevelt-Litvinov agreement where the United States recognized the Soviet Government.

The offer by the Permanent Court’s Secretary General to have the Hawaiian Government provide the United States an invitation to join in the arbitral proceedings, and the Hawaiian Government’s acceptance of this offer, also constitutes an international agreement between the Permanent Court and the Hawaiian Kingdom. According to J.L. Weinstein, in his article, “Exchange of Notes,” in the British Yearbook of International Law, “the growth of international organizations and the recognition of their legal personality has resulted in agreements being concluded by an exchange of notes between such organizations and states.” This treaty is called the Sai-van den Hout agreement.

There is no question of law or fact that by virtue of the Sai-Clinton agreement, the United States recognizes the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom since the nineteenth century and that American laws and administrative measures being imposed within the territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom is UNLAWFUL. Section 6 and 8 of the Hawaiian Kingdom Civil Codes states:

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

§8. Whatever is done in contravention of a prohibitory law is void, although the nullity be not formally directed.

As a result, the United States, through its State of Hawai‘i, must begin to comply with the international law of occupation and begin to administer the laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom, which the provisional laws proclaimed in 2014, until there is a treaty of peace. Under the law of occupation, the State of Hawai‘i must transform itself into a Military Government. The Council of Regency has published its Operational Plan for Transitioning the State of Hawai‘i into a Military Government in 2023 with essential and implied tasks.

Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave, When First We Practice to Deceive! The Recognition by the United States of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the Kamehameha Schools Lawsuit

Posted on February 20, 2026 by Hawaiian Kingdom

International law is the set of rules, norms, and standards that govern relations between sovereign and independent States, and international organizations. An example of an international organization is the Permanent Court of Arbitration, which is an intergovernmental organization comprised of government representatives of independent States.

The main sources of international law are international agreements called convention or treaties, international custom, and general principles of law recognized by civilized nations. International custom is also called customary international law, which is a set of unwritten, binding legal rules derived from the consistent, general practices of independent States, rather than formal written treaties.

There are two components of customary international law—the “what,” which is the specific practice of States, and the “why,” which is the reason a State does the specific practice. The former is called State practice, and the latter is called opinio juris where the States must act out of a sense of legal obligation and not just because it wants to. Opinio juris is Latin that means “opinion of law or practice.” The action of a State can include its silence, which is an act of acquiescence.

When the Permanent Court recognized the Hawaiian Kingdom’s continued existence as an independent State and the Council of Regency as its interim government, in Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom, it was an act taken by an intergovernmental organization. Professor Michael Akehurst, in his article “Custom as a Source of International Law,” stated that because intergovernmental organizations are comprised of representatives of States, “their practice is best regarded as the practice of States.” So, when none of the current 127 States that comprise the Permanent Court, which includes the United States, objected to the Permanent Court’s act of recognizing the Hawaiian Kingdom, they did so because of a legal obligation.

That legal obligation is that international law clearly states that the State continues to exist despite its government being militarily overthrown. This is why the State of Iraq continued to exist despite the United States military overthrow of the Iraqi government during the Second Gulf War. This was called the American occupation of Iraq. And that the only way the United States could acquire the territory and sovereignty of the Hawaiian Kingdom is by a treaty of cession. There is no such treaty that the Hawaiian Kingdom ceded its territory and sovereignty to the United States. There only exists the unlawful imposition of American laws over the territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom since 1898. Like any of the laws of a State, American laws have no effect outside of its territorial borders.

There are two significant acts by the Permanent Court that the United States did not object to. The first significant act are the Permanent Court’s annual reports from 2001-2011 that stated the jurisdiction of the Permanent Court for the Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom arbitration was by virtue of Article 47 of the 1907 Hague Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, which established the Permanent Court. Article 47 states, “The jurisdiction of the Permanent Court may, within the conditions laid down in the regulations, be extended to disputes [with] non-Contracting Powers.” Under international law “Powers” and “States” are used interchangeably.

Because the Hawaiian Kingdom did not sign the 1907 Hague Convention, it is considered a non-Contracting Power. There are currently 125 Contracting Powers to the 1907 Hague Convention who are also Contracting States to the United Nations Charter. Of the 193 Member States of the United Nations, 68 are non-Contracting Powers to the 1907 Hague Convention like the Hawaiian Kingdom. Just as the Hawaiian Kingdom could access the jurisdiction of the Permanent Court to resolve an international dispute, so could these 68 States under Article 47.

The second significant act is the Permanent Court’s case description of the Larsen case on its website, which states:

Lance Paul Larsen, a resident of Hawaii, brought a claim against the Hawaiian Kingdom by its Council of Regency (“Hawaiian Kingdom”) on the grounds that the Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom is in continual violation of: (a) its 1849 Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation with the United States of America, as well as the principles of international law laid down in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969 and (b) the principles of international comity, for allowing the unlawful imposition of American municipal laws over the claimant’s person within the territorial jurisdiction of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

Because the United States has not objected to the Permanent Court’s description of the case, it accepts the description as true and accurate. The case description states that the Hawaiian Kingdom, a non-Contracting Power, is represented by the Council of Regency as its Government. The 1849 Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between the Hawaiian Kingdom and the United States continues to exist. And that the imposition of American municipal laws within the territorial jurisdiction of the Hawaiian Kingdom is UNLAWFUL.

In the federal lawsuit of Students for Fair Admissions v. Kamehameha Schools, there is a collision of Hawaiian Kingdom laws and American laws. The plaintiff is relying on American laws in its lawsuit, the defendant exists under Hawaiian Kingdom laws, and the federal court is under American law, which the United States, under customary international law, recognizes as UNLAWFUL.

These were the grounds for the Hawaiian Kingdom to intervene by filing a motion on January 21, 2026, in the case to ensure the protection of Kamehameha Schools under Hawaiian Kingdom law as well as customary international law that binds the United States. When Judge Micah Smith denied the Hawaiian Kingdom’s motion to intervene on January 23, 2026, claiming that it gave rise to the political question doctrine, the Hawaiian Kingdom filed a motion for reconsideration on February 3, 2026, because Judge Smith committed a “manifest error” in his judgment.

In its motion for reconsideration, the Hawaiian Kingdom showed why the Judge was in error because the political question only arises if the United States does not currently recognize the Hawaiian Kingdom and the Council of Regency as its government, BUT IT DID.

In the motion, it explained that not only did the United States recognize the Hawaiian Kingdom and the Council of Regency by opinio juris—customary international law as already explained, but also by an executive agreement, being a treaty under international law, where the United States requested permission from the Hawaiian Kingdom, WHICH IT GAVE, to have access to all records and pleadings of the Larsen case. The Deputy Secretary General of the Permanent Court, Phyllis Hamilton, brokered the agreement.

Coincident to the granting of permission was the United States recognition of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the Council of Regency as its interim government. In laymen’s terms, you can’t request permission without first recognizing that you are asking permission from a government that is a defendant in an international arbitration case at the Permanent Court.

It would appear that Judge Smith hit the “pause button.” Where he quickly issued the judgment denying the Hawaiian Kingdom’s motion to intervene just two days after the filing, we are now at seventeen days since the filing of the motion for reconsideration.

Hawaiian Kingdom Files Supplemental Brief for its Motion for Reconsideration in SFFA v. Kamehameha Schools

Posted on February 16, 2026 by Hawaiian Kingdom

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 16, 2026

Today, the Council of Regency, as interim government of the Hawaiian Kingdom, filed its Motion for Leave to File Supplemental Brief in Support of Motion for Reconsideration with the United States District Court for the District of Hawai‘i, seeking permission of Judge Micah Smith to file its supplemental brief in support of its motion for reconsideration.

The Hawaiian Kingdom explains that the supplemental brief provides vital case law, analysis and context necessary for Judge Smith’s consideration regarding its motion for reconsidering its decision that the Hawaiian Kingdom’s motion to intervene raises the political question doctrine, which prevents the federal court from accepting the filing. The political question doctrine only arises if the United States executive branch has not recognized the sovereignty of a country such as Palestine.

In its motion for reconsideration, the Hawaiian Kingdom provided clear and irrefutable evidence that the United States recognized the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a State since the nineteenth century and the Council of Regency as its government by an executive agreement, which is a treaty under international law. As explained in the Hawaiian Kingdom’s motion for reconsideration, this executive agreement granted the United States access to all records and pleadings of the Larsen case at the Permanent Court of Arbitration. The Hawaiian Kingdom also provided clear evidence that the United States, along with the other 126 Contracting States to the Permanent Court of Arbitration, also recognized the Hawaiian Kingdom and the Council of Regency under customary international law—opinio juris.

The Hawaiian Kingdom’s supplemental brief covered two additional areas for Judge Smith to consider. First, the significance of the 1937 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, in United States v. Belmont, on executive agreements, and second, the legal status of the Kamehameha Schools trust under Hawaiian Kingdom law, but the legal status of the current administration of the trust under American law, which is a war crime under international law.

United States v. Belmont (1937)

In its supplemental brief, the Hawaiian Kingdom drew attention to the circumstances of the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Belmont, which is similar in circumstance to the Hawaiian Kingdom’s executive agreement with the United States. In Belmont, the Supreme Court stated:

We take judicial notice of the fact that, coincident with the assignment set forth in the complaint, the President recognized the Soviet Government.

The assignment was effected by an exchange of diplomatic correspondence between the Soviet Government and the United States. The purpose was to bring about a final settlement of the claims and counterclaims between the Soviet Government and the United States, and it was agreed that the Soviet Government would take no steps to enforce claims against American nationals, but all such claims were released and assigned to the United States, with the understanding that the Soviet Government was to be duly notified of all amounts realized by the United States from such release and assignment.

And in respect of what was done here, the Executive had authority to speak as the sole organ of that government. The assignment and the agreements in connection therewith did not, as in the case of treaties, as that term is used in the treaty-making clause of the Constitution (Art. II, § 2), require the advice and consent of the Senate.

We held that, although this might not be a treaty requiring ratification by the Senate, it was a compact negotiated and proclaimed under the authority of the President, and as such was a “treaty” within the meaning of the Circuit Court of Appeals Act, the construction of which might be reviewed upon direct appeal to this court.

Like the assignment being effected by the executive agreement with the Soviet Government, the permission for the United States to access all records and pleadings in the Larsen case was effected by the executive agreement with the Hawaiian Kingdom Government. Coincident to both executive agreements was the United States recognition of the Soviet Government and the Hawaiian Kingdom Government.

Kamehameha Schools established under Hawaiian Kingdom law

By her last Will and Testament dated October 31, 1883, with two codicils dated October 4, 1884, and October 9, 1884, Bernice Pauahi Bishop established a mandate “to erect and maintain in the Hawaiian Islands two schools, each for boarding and day scholars, one for boys and one for girls, to be known as, and called the Kamehameha 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.” She also told her husband, Charles Reed Bishop who became Chair of the Trustees, that aboriginal Hawaiians should have preference in admission. He stated this in his speech at the first Founder’s Day celebration in 1888.

The Will with two codicils were admitted to probate by the Supreme Court of the Hawaiian Kingdom on December 2, 1884. According to article fourteen of the will, she designated Charles R. Bishop, Samuel M. Damon, Charles M. Hyde, Charles M. Cooke, and William O. Smith to be her trustees. On March 4, 1885, these individuals accepted their duties as trustees. The Will provides “that vacancies shall be filled by the choice of a majority of the Justices of the Supreme Court,” and that annual reports “of all receipts and expenditures, and of the condition of said schools,” shall be made “to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, or the highest judicial officer in the country.”

After President Grover Cleveland completed a presidential investigation into the overthrow of the Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom by United States troops on January 17, 1893, he sent a message to the Congress that the insurgency calling itself the provisional government was “neither a government de facto [in fact] nor de jure [in law],” and that it “owes its existence to an armed invasion by the United States.” The President entered into an executive agreement with the Queen where he committed that the United States would reinstate the Queen in office as the Executive Monarch, and the Queen committed that after she’s reinstated she’ll grant amnesty to the insurgents. Due to political wrangling in the Congress, however, the President was unable to carry out its obligation under the executive agreement, which is a treaty under international law, and the insurgents did not receive amnesty.

On July 4, 1894, the insurgency changed its name from the provisional government to the Republic of Hawai‘i and continued to seek annexation by the United States. On March 4, 1897, President Cleveland was succeeded by President William McKinley. President McKinley’s administration favored annexing the Hawaiian Islands for military purposes. At the height of the Spanish-American War, the Congress enacted a joint resolution of annexation on July 6, 1898, and President McKinley signed it into law the following day. The underlying problem is that any law enacted by the Congress has no effect beyond the borders of the United States. Only by means of a treaty with the Hawaiian Kingdom, not with the insurgents, could the United States acquire Hawaiian sovereignty and territory. A joint resolution is not a treaty. Regarding the limits of American laws, the Supreme Court, in Belmont, stated, “our Constitution, laws and policies have no extraterritorial operation unless in respect of our own citizens.”

In 1988, the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), in a legal opinion, concluded that it is “unclear which constitutional power Congress exercised when it acquired Hawaii by joint resolution. Accordingly, it is doubtful that the acquisition of Hawaii can serve as an appropriate precedent for a congressional assertion of sovereignty over an extended territorial sea.” The OLC stated:

The constitutionality of the annexation of Hawaii, by a simple legislative act, was strenuously contested at the time both in the Congress and by the press. The right to annex by treaty was not denied, but it was denied that this might be done by a simple legislative act…Only by means of treaties, it was asserted, can the relations between States be governed, for a legislative act is necessarily without extraterritorial force—confined in its operation to the territory of the State by whose legislature it is enacted.

On April 30, 1900, the Congress renamed the Republic of Hawai‘i to the Territory of Hawai‘i and began to impose American laws in the Hawaiian Kingdom in violation of international law. In 1959, the Congress renamed the Territory of Hawai‘i to the State of Hawai‘i. The State of Hawai‘i is the direct successor of the provisional government and their laws, being American laws, have no effect within the territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Under international law, the imposition of American laws is a war crime called usurpation of sovereignty during military occupation.

Usurpation of sovereignty during military occupation was listed as a war crime in 1919 by the Commission on Responsibilities of the Paris Peace Conference that was established by the Allied and Associated Powers at war with Germany and its allies during the First World War. The Commission was especially concerned with acts perpetrated in occupied territories against non-combatants and civilians. Usurpation of sovereignty during military occupation is the imposition of the laws and administrative policies of the Occupying State over the territory of the Occupied State. The crime of usurpation of sovereignty during military occupation was referred to by Judge Blair of the American Military Commission in a separate opinion in the Justice Case, holding that this “rule is incident to military occupation and was clearly intended to protect the inhabitants of any occupied territory against the unnecessary exercise of sovereignty by a military occupant.”

Because the Queen was not reinstated and the insurgency did not receive amnesty, the Bishop Estate was incapable of operating after January 17, 1893, because the majority of its trustees were insurgents. Furthermore, the Will only provides for the appointment of trustees to be done by the Hawaiian Kingdom Supreme Court and no other. When Charles Hyde, one of the trustees, died October 13, 1898, the Territory of Hawai‘i Supreme Court appointed Alfred W. Carter his successor on January 6, 1900. First, the Territorial Supreme Court is not the Hawaiian Kingdom Supreme Court, and second, Walter F. Frear and William A. Whiting who appointed Carter were insurgents and members of the provisional government. All appointments of trustees after January 17, 1893, were not in accordance with the Will of Bernice Pauahi Bishop, and the operation of Bishop Estate under American law did not affect or change the Estate as it stood on January 17th. The Bishop Estate lapsed into abeyance on January 17, 1893.

The current Trustees of the Kamehameha Schools were all appointed by the State of Hawai‘i Probate Court under American law. Their appointment of Jack Wong as Chief Executive Officer in 2014 was made by Trustees appointed under American law but the Kamehameha Schools trust is under Hawaiian Kingdom law. In its supplemental brief, the Hawaiian Kingdom explained that the current standing of the administration of Kamehameha Schools can be remedied under the provisional laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom so long as the selection of trustees by a probate court are not inconsistent with Hawaiian Kingdom law.

On October 10, 2014, the Council of Regency proclaimed the provisional laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom. The Proclamation stated, “And we do hereby proclaim from the date of this proclamation all laws that have emanated from an unlawful legislature since the insurrection began on July 6, 1887 to the present, to include United States legislation, shall be the provisional laws of the Realm subject to ratification by the Legislative Assembly of the Hawaiian Kingdom once assembled, with the express proviso that these provisional laws do not run contrary to the express, reason and spirit of the laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom prior to July 6, 1887, the international laws of occupation and international humanitarian law, and if it be the case they shall be regarded as invalid and void.”

The obligatory nature of this Proclamation is expressed in section 6 of the Hawaiian Civil Code that states:

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

The Council of Regency would consider that the selection of Kamehameha Schools Trustees by a State of Hawai‘i Probate Court, and not the Supreme Court, “do not run contrary to the express, reason and spirit of the laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom prior to July 6, 1887, the international laws of occupation and international humanitarian law” given the circumstances for that change.

The Council of Regency is represented by Hawaiian attorney Edward Halealoha Ayau of the Law Office of Edward Halealoha Ayau.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Dr. David “Keanu” Sai, Ph.D.
Chairman of the Council of Regency
Acting Minister of the Interior
Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs ad interim
Email: interior@hawaiiankingdom.org

Checkmate: The significance of the Hawaiian Kingdom’s filing of its Motion for Reconsideration in the Kamehameha Schools lawsuit

Posted on February 4, 2026 by Hawaiian Kingdom

The federal courts of the United States represent a higher level of standard than courts within the various States of the American Union. What is at its core is the “rule of law” that provides legal predictability, continuity, and coherence; reasoned decisions made through publicly visible processes and based faithfully on the law. U.S. District Courts, unlike the Appellate Courts, have trials that apply the rule of law in filings, proceedings and evidence. You don’t have trials at the Appellate Court.

Rule 11(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure addresses representations to the Court. “By presenting to the court a pleading, written motion, or other paper…an attorney…certifies that to the best of the person’s knowledge, information, and belief, formed after an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances: (1) it is not being presented for any improper purpose, such as to harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation; (2) the claims, defenses, and other legal contentions are warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law; (3) the factual contentions have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, will likely have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery; and (4) the denials of factual contentions are warranted on the evidence or, if specifically so identified, are reasonably based on belief or a lack of information.”

If an attorney files any written motion that violates these conditions, he/she can be sanctioned by the Court under Rule 11(c)(1), which states, “If, after notice and a reasonable opportunity to respond, the court determines that Rule 11(b) has been violated, the court may impose an appropriate sanction on any attorney, law firm, or party that violated the rule or is responsible for the violation. Absent exceptional circumstances, a law firm must be held jointly responsible for a violation committed by its partner, associate, or employee.” In other words, if a motion is frivolous, the attorney can be sanctioned.

The basis of this rule would also apply to Declarations made in support of a motion where the declarant would have committed the crime of perjury if what was stated in the Declaration are false statements. This comes under U.S. Federal law 18 U.S.C. §1621 and §1623. This is why in Declarations filed with Federal Courts it states, “I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct to the best of my knowledge.”

Rule 11(b)(2) applies to the content of the Hawaiian Kingdom’s Motion for Reconsideration, which is “warranted by existing law.” In the District Courts, along with constitutional provisions and statutes, existing law includes Federal Court decisions that came before the Appellate Courts or the Supreme Court.

In the Hawaiian Kingdom’s Motion for Reconsideration, it provided clear evidence of two instances that the United States recognized the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the Council of Regency as its government while administrative proceedings took place at the Permanent Court of Arbitration, The Hague, Netherlands, in Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom (1999-2001).

The first instance was by executive agreement between the Council of Regency and the United States, by its Embassy in the Netherlands, that provided permission to the United States to access all records and pleadings of the case. Under international law, this is called an executive agreement, by exchange of notes. Pertinent Supreme Court decisions on this subject of executive agreements that were cited in the Motion for Reconsideration are United States v. Belmont (1937), United States v. Pink (1942), and American Ins. Ass’n v. Garamendi (2003).

In Garamendi, the Supreme Court stated, “our cases have recognized that the President has authority to make ‘executive agreements’ with other countries, requiring no ratification by the Senate […] this power having been exercised since the early years of the Republic.”

In Belmont, the Supreme Court stated, “an international compact […] is not always a treaty which requires the participation of the Senate.”

And in Pink, the Supreme Court stated, “all international compacts and agreements’ are to be treated with similar dignity, for the reason that ‘complete power over international affairs is in the national government, and is not and cannot be subject to any curtailment or interference on the part of the several states.”

The significance on the executive agreement between the Hawaiian Kingdom and the United States is stated by the Supreme Court in Garamendi where, “valid executive agreements are fit to preempt state law, just as treaties are.” In other words, the executive agreement negates the legal existence of the State of Hawai‘i, and the consequences of this executive agreement where the United States recognizes the continued existence of the sovereignty of the Hawaiian Kingdom over the Hawaiian Islands is clearly stated by the Supreme Court in Jones v. United States (1890). In Jones, the Supreme Court stated:

By the constitution of the United States, the President is invested with certain important political powers, in the exercise of which he is to use his own discretion, and is accountable only to his country in his political character, and to his own conscience. […] He is the mere organ by whom that will is communicated. The acts of such an officer, as an officer, can never be examinable by the courts.”

In Jones, the Supreme Court also stated that recognition of the sovereignty of a State “conclusively binds the judges, as well as all other officers, citizens, and subjects of that government.” In other words, this executive agreement of recognition binds District Court Judge Micah Smith, the Plaintiffs Student for Fair Admission and the Defendant Kamehameha Schools and that it “can never be examinable by the courts” of the United States, which includes State courts.

The Court, together with the Plaintiffs and the Defendant, are not the contracting parties to the executive agreement, but are bound not to question or examine it, unless they can provide evidence that there is no such executive agreement ever made. To do so, however, is to have the United States Attorney General intervene in the case and provide evidence that there is no such thing as an executive agreement between the Hawaiian Kingdom and the United States, a claim that would be considered frivolous under Rule 11(b). Therefore, the U.S. Attorney General, after intervening in the lawsuit, will have to counter the evidential basis of the executive agreement in the Hawaiian Kingdom’s Motion for Reconsideration. As a contracting party to the executive agreement, only the United States can examine the evidence of the executive agreement.

The second instance was by opio juris—customary international law where none of the Contracting States to the treaty that formed the Permanent Court, to include the United States, did not object to the Permanent Court’s recognition of the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the Council of Regency as its government in order for it to have established the arbitration tribunal on June 9, 2000. This was explained in a legal opinion by Federico Lenzerini, a professor of international law at the University of Siena, Italy, which was Exhibit 1 attached to his Declaration that was filed with the Motion for Reconsideration.

The Supreme Court has recognized that the writings of legal scholars are a source of customary international law. In the Paquete Habana case (1900), the Supreme Court stated, “the works of jurists and commentators, who by years of labor, research and experience, have made themselves peculiarly well acquainted with the subjects they treat. Such works are resorted to by judicial tribunals, not for the speculations of their authors concerning what the law ought to be, but for trustworthy evidence of what the law really is.”

These scholars also include Professor Matthew Craven’s legal opinion on the continuity of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a State under international law, which is Exhibit B attached to the Hawaiian Kingdom’s Motion to Intervene; Professor Federico Lenzerini’s legal opinion on the authority of the Council of Regency of the Hawaiian Kingdom attached as Exhibit D to the Motion to Intervene; and Professor William Schabas’ legal opinion on war crimes related to the American occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom attached as Exhibit E to the Motion to Intervene.

As they say in the game of chess, checkmate, which is where there is no possible escape for the United States.

Hawaiian Kingdom Moves for the Court to Reconsider its Denial of its Motion to Intervene in SFFA v. Kamehameha Schools

Posted on February 3, 2026 by Hawaiian Kingdom

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 3, 2026

Today, the Council of Regency, as interim government of the Hawaiian Kingdom, filed its Motion for Reconsideration with the United States District Court for the District of Hawai‘i, seeking reconsideration of Judge Micah Smith’s January 23, 2026, Order to deny the Hawaiian Kingdom’s Motion to Intervene in the case between Students for Fair Admissions and the Kamehameha Schools filed on January 21, 2026.

The Hawaiian Kingdom argues that the Court committed “manifest errors of law” including its misapplication of the political question doctrine at the intervention stage. Rule 24 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure only requires a legally protectable interest related to the subject of the action to permit intervention, conclusively established by the Hawaiian Kingdom in its initial Motion to Intervene. Judge Smith, in his Order, manifestly erred by stating that intervention would require adjudication of issues constitutionally committed to the political branches.

The political question doctrine bars federal courts from adjudicating disputes that are “textually committed” by the U.S. Constitution to another branch or lack judicially manageable standards to resolve. In the case of Hawai‘i, the court invoked this doctrine because prior courts asserted that the United States executive branch has not recognized the Hawaiian Kingdom. In this case, the Hawaiian Kingdom provides conclusive evidence that this is incorrect.

The United States did recognize the Hawaiian Kingdom during arbitration proceedings at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom from 1999-2001.

First, the United States explicitly recognized the Hawaiian Kingdom and the Council of Regency as a matter of opinio juris, under customary international law, when it did not object to the Permanent Court’s recognition of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the Council of Regency before it formed the arbitration tribunal on June 9, 2000. An example of such customary international practice occurred when Palestine became a contracting State to the treaty on October 30, 2015, that formed the Permanent Court, the United States filed a protest with the Dutch Foreign Ministry that stated “the government of the United States considers that ‘the State of Palestine’ does not answer to the definition of a sovereign State and does not recognize it as such.”

Second, the United States explicitly recognized the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a State since the nineteenth century and the Council of Regency as its government when it entered into an executive agreement with the Council of Regency that allowed the United States, through its Embassy, in The Hague, Netherlands, to access records and pleadings of the case.

If Hawai‘i was legally the 50th State of the American Union and not the State of the Hawaiian Kingdom, customary international practice obligates the United States to have protested the Permanent Court’s recognition of the Hawaiian Kingdom’s continued existence and the Council of Regency as its government. Customarily, its failure to protest, binds the United States’ (as well as all countries of the Permanent Court) recognition of the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the Council of Regency as its government.

Moreover, the United States would not be able to say that the State of Hawai‘i is lawful because at the center of the dispute between Larsen and the Hawaiian Kingdom was the unlawful imposition of American laws over the territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom. On its website the Permanent Court described the Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom case as:

Lance Paul Larsen, a resident of Hawaii, brought a claim against the Hawaiian Kingdom by its Council of Regency (“Hawaiian Kingdom”) on the grounds that the Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom is in continual violation of: (a) its 1849 Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation with the United States of America, as well as the principles of international law laid down in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969 and (b) the principles of international comity, for allowing the unlawful imposition of American municipal laws over the claimant’s person within the territorial jurisdiction of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

The State Hawai‘i was established in 1959 by an American law, which would make its existence unlawful under international law.

In its arbitration award in Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom, the arbitration tribunal stated that “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, including by exchanges of diplomatic or consular representatives and the conclusion of treaties.”

The Permanent Court’s institutional recognition of the Hawaiian Kingdom prevents the United States, under international law, from denying its existence today as a sovereign State, unless the United States can show it extinguished the Hawaiian Kingdom under international law. To have extinguished the Hawaiian Kingdom under international law it would have to show that the Hawaiian Kingdom ceded or transferred its sovereignty and territory to the United States by a treaty of cession. There is no such evidence.

Significantly, NONE of the current 126 Contracting States to the treaty that formed the Permanent Court, to include the United States, objected to the Permanent Court’s conclusion that the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist and that it is a non-Contracting State under Article 47 of the treaty permitting the Hawaiian Kingdom access to the Permanent Court. Article 47 states, the “jurisdiction of the Permanent Court may…be extended to disputes [with] non-Contracting Powers.” In international law, “Powers” is used interchangeably with “States.”

This means the following 126 States also recognize the Hawaiian Kingdom and the Council of Regency by opinio juris—customary international law:

Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, The Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czechia, the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Latvia, Lebanon, Libya, Lithuania, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Norway, Pakistan, Palestine, Panama, Paraguay, the People’s Republic of China, Peru, Philippines, the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Türkiye, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United States of America, Uruguay, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

All Hawaiian Kingdom treaty partners, to include the United States, are also Contracting States to the treaty that formed the Permanent Court, and these treaties have not been terminated. These treaties are also binding on the successor States of the Hawaiian Kingdom treaty partners. A successor State is a former colony of a State that gained its independence. Examples of successor States are Vietnam who was a former colony of France and New Zealand who was a former colony of Great Britain. Currently, the Hawaiian Kingdom has treaties with 153 Member States of the United Nations, of which 14 treaties are with original States and 139 treaties are with successor States.

Judge Smith’s Order created further manifest error when he prematurely and improperly expanded the court’s review for intervention, under Rule 24 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, in stating that the Hawaiian Kingdom’s intervention made “arguments about the proper interpretation of federal law and the Constitution of the United States, and refer to materials that might aid in interpreting both,” and that Plaintiffs (SSFA) and Defendant (Kamehameha Schools) “are ably represented by counsel fully capable of submitting and raising arguments based on any such pertinent materials.”

In its Motion for Reconsideration, the Hawaiian Kingdom provides evidence that Kamehameha Schools explicitly decided not to represent the Hawaiian Kingdom’s interests as a sovereign and independent State under international law. Conversely, it defies reason to presume that Plaintiff SSFA would either raise or assert the application of Hawaiian Kingdom law resulting in the very extinguishment of its complaint. This decision prompted the Hawaiian Kingdom to file its motion to intervene, as it believes neither the Plaintiffs nor the Defendant will adequately represent its interests.

The Hawaiian Kingdom references various legal cases and opinions, including State of Hawai‘i v. Lorenzo and United States v. Goo, which establish an evidentiary standard for proving the Hawaiian Kingdom’s continued existence as a sovereign State. It also cites international law principles, treaties, and legal opinions conclusively establishingthe Hawaiian Kingdom’s claims. The Hawaiian Kingdom’s motion for reconsideration has met that evidentiary standard of the Hawaiian Kingdom’s continued existence.

The Hawaiian Kingdom requests Judge Smith to reconsider its denial of the motion to intervene, arguing that the court’s decision was based on manifest errors of law and that the Hawaiian Kingdom has a legally protectable interest in the case. It emphasizes the United States’ recognition of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the failure of Kamehameha Schools to represent its interests as a basis to grant its motion to intervene.

The Council of Regency is represented by Hawaiian attorney Edward Halealoha Ayau of the Law Office of Edward Halealoha Ayau.

DOWNLOAD FILED HAWAIIAN KINGDOM PLEADINGS:

Motion for Reconsideration

Memorandum of Law in Support of Motion for Reconsideration

Declaration of Dr. David Keanu Sai with Exhibits 1-4

Declaration of Professor Niklaus Schweizer with Exhibit 1

Declaration of Professor Federico Lenzerini with Exhibits 1-2

MEDIA CONTACT:

Dr. David “Keanu” Sai, Ph.D.
Chairman of the Council of Regency
Acting Minister of the Interior
Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs ad interim
Email: interior@hawaiiankingdom.org

Council of Regency of the Hawaiian Kingdom Moves to Intervene in SFFA v. Kamehameha Schools to Protect Hawaiian Law, History, and Future Generations

Posted on January 21, 2026 by Hawaiian Kingdom

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 21, 2026

Today, the Council of Regency, as interim government of the Hawaiian Kingdom, filed a Motion to Intervene with an accompanying Motion to Dismiss in the SFFA v. Kamehameha Schools litigation, now pending before the United States District Court for the District of Hawaiʻi.

SFFA’s assertion is wrong.

This case is significant considering the recent American invasion of Venezuela, the American threat to invade Colombia, Cuba and Mexico, and the American threat to annex Greenland. Despite the unlawful invasion of the Hawaiian Kingdom by U.S. troops on January 16, 1893, and the unlawful seizure of Hawaiian territory for military expansion, the Hawaiian Kingdom, as a Neutral State, continued to exist under a prolonged American occupation.

In 1997, the government was restored as a Council of Regency under Hawaiian constitutional law and the legal doctrine of necessity. In an international dispute that came before the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, Netherlands, in Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom, the Permanent Court recognized the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a State under international law and the Council of Regency as its interim government. At the center of the dispute was the unlawful imposition of American laws over Hawaiian territory. For more information see “Hawai‘i’s Sovereignty and Survival in the Age of Empire” published in December of 2024 by Oxford University Press in London, and the Hawaiian Kingdom’s Situation filed as a Non-Member State of the United Nations with the President of the General Assembly on October 16, 2025.

Kamehameha Schools was created under the laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom in the nineteenth century, at a time when Hawaiʻi was an internationally recognized sovereign State with treaties, diplomats, and a functioning constitutional government. Pauahi’s will was accepted by the Hawaiian Kingdom Supreme Court in 1885—years before the illegal overthrow of Queen Liliʻuokalani in 1893. Those laws did not disappear with the arrival of U.S. troops. Under international law, the overthrow of a government does not extinguish the State itself.

Since 1893, Hawaiʻi has remained under a prolonged and unlawful occupation. International humanitarian law is clear: occupation does not transfer sovereignty, and the laws of the occupied State remain in force unless absolutely prevented. U.S. domestic statutes cannot simply be presumed to override the civil, trust, and national welfare laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Yet SFFA’s case depends entirely on that presumption.

This is why the Motion to Intervene is so critical.

The Motion to Intervene addresses the international law of occupation—an issue completely absent from SFFA’s pleadings and beyond the capacity of a private trust to litigate. If the Court applies U.S. law without recognizing applicable law under international norms, it risks violating international law by usurping Hawaiian State sovereignty by applying American law regarding civil rights and not Hawaiian Kingdom civil rights law that has its own version of Hawaiian affirmative action as stated by the Hawaiian Kingdom Supreme Court in Rex v. Booth, 2 Haw. 616 (1863).

The intervention seeks to correct historical inaccuracies advanced by SFFA, including the claim that Hawaiʻi was lawfully annexed and therefore fully subject to U.S. civil rights statutes. Annexation by joint resolution was unconstitutional and unlawful under international law. In a 1988 legal opinion, the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice examined the purported annexation of Hawai‘i by a joint resolution and concluded it is “unclear which constitutional power Congress exercised when it acquired Hawaii by joint resolution.” The opinion also stated, “Only by means of treaties…can the relations between States be governed, for a legislative act is necessarily without extraterritorial force—confined in its operation to the territory of the State by whose legislature it is enacted.” No treaty of cession was ever ratified. The Hawaiian Kingdom never surrendered its sovereignty, and the Hawaiian people never consented to it.

Addressed in the accompanying Motion to Dismiss is the Hawaiian Kingdom’s jurisprudence that expressly recognized special legislation and remedial measures favoring aboriginal Hawaiians as lawful and necessary for national welfare. Kamehameha Schools’ admissions policy is consistent with that legal tradition and with Pauahi’s intent—not racial discrimination as defined by a U.S. constitutional framework that did not exist in Hawaiʻi at the time.

Neither SFFA nor Kamehameha Schools can represent these broader interests. SFFA seeks to erase Hawaiian history to advance its claims. Kamehameha Schools, as a defendant fighting for its survival, cannot speak as a government charged with protecting a people, their laws, and their future. Only the Council of Regency, as the interim government of the Hawaiian Kingdom, can do that.

This intervention is not about asking the Court to decide sovereignty because international law already settled that. It is about insisting on a fair and lawful process. Courts have a duty to avoid interpretations that place the United States in continuing violation of international law. They also have a duty to ensure that cases are decided under the correct governing law.

If this case proceeds without addressing occupation law, Hawaiian Kingdom law, and the true historical record, the harm will extend far beyond one school. It will strike at the survival of institutions created to remedy the harms of usurpation of Hawaiian State sovereignty and dispossession—and at the rights of Hawaiian children yet to be born.

“The future is shaped by the past,” a Hawaiian proverb teaches. The Motion to Intervene is about making sure the Court sees the past clearly, applies the law correctly, and does not allow historical falsehoods to dictate the future of the Hawaiian people.

The Council of Regency is represented by Hawaiian attorney Edward Halealoha Ayau of the Law Office of Edward Halealoha Ayau, international human rights attorney Natali Segovia of the Water Protector Legal Collective, and the International Association of Democratic Lawyers.

DOWNLOAD FILED HAWAIIAN KINGDOM PLEADINGS:

Notice of Motion to Intervene

Non-Party Intervenor Hawaiian Kingdom’s Motion to Intervene

Memorandum of Law in Support of Hawaiian Kingdom’s Motion to Intervene

Exhibit “A” – Non-Party Intervenor Hawaiian Kingdom’s Proposed Rule 12(b)(6) Motion to Dismiss

Exhibit “B” – Continuity of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a State under International Law by Professor Matthew Craven

Exhibit “C” – The Royal Commission of Inquiry by Dr. David Keanu Sai

Exhibit “D” – Legal Opinion on the Authority of the Council of Regency of the Hawaiian Kingdom by Professor Federico Lenzerini

Exhibit “E” – War Crimes Related to the United States Belligerent Occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom by Professor William Schabas

Exhibit “F” – Hawai‘i’s Sovereignty and Survival in the Age of Empire by Dr. David Keanu Sai in H.E. Chehabi and David Motadel (eds.) Unconquered States: Non-European Powers in the Imperial Age (Oxford University Press)

Exhibit “G” – Hawaiian Kingdom Council of Regency’s Proclamation of Provisional Laws of the Realm

Certificate of Service

Certificate of Compliance

Proposed Order Granting Non-Party Intervenor Hawaiian Kingdom’s Motion to Intervene

MEDIA CONTACT:

Dr. David “Keanu” Sai, Ph.D.
Chairman of the Council of Regency
Acting Minister of the Interior
Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs ad interim
Email: interior@hawaiiankingdom.org

Remembering the Illegal American Seizure of the Hawaiian Kingdom

Posted on January 12, 2026 by Hawaiian Kingdom

Kamehameha Schools can Prevail in Pending Lawsuit Challenging its Admission Policy with Preference to those with Native Hawaiian Ancestry

Posted on October 7, 2025 by Hawaiian Kingdom

On September 4, 2025, the Civil Beat published an article “Kamehameha Schools’ Admission Policies May Face Legal Challenge.” They reported:

A conservative mainland group whose lawsuit against Harvard ended affirmative action in college admissions is now building support in Hawai‘i to take on Kamehameha Schools’ policies that give preference to Native Hawaiian students. Students for Fair Admissions, based in Virginia, recently launched the website KamehamehaNotFair.org. It says that the admission preference “is so strong that it is essentially impossible for a non-Native Hawaiian student to be admitted to Kamehameha.” “We believe that focus on ancestry, rather than merit or need, is neither fair nor legal, and we are committed to ending Kamehameha’s unlawful admissions policies in court,” the website says.

Students for Fair Admissions won a lawsuit against Harvard University in 2023 that ruled race-based affirmative action programs in most college admissions violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Clause provides “nor shall any State … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Although the purpose of the Clause was to protect freed slaves after the Civil War from discrimination by the Southern States, it also applied to individuals in similar situations being treated equally by American law across all State of the Union.

Affirmative action and policies promote equal opportunity in order to counteract past discrimination and has been applied to college admissions. According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, affirmative action is “not a type of discrimination but a justification for a policy or practice based on race, sex, or national origin. An affirmative action plan must be designed to achieve the purposes of Title VII; i.e., to break down old patterns of segregation and hierarchy and to overcome the effects of past or present practices, policies, or other barriers to equal employment opportunity.” The U.S. Supreme Court, however, in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard University, in 2023, ruled affirmative action to be unconstitutional. Kamehameha Schools is now being targeted by the same group that won its case against Harvard University.

Doe v. Kamehameha

In 2003, Kamehameha Schools faced its first legal challenge for its admission policy in Doe v. Kamehameha Schools/Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate. The plaintiff, being an unnamed applicant that was denied admission as a student because he was not of Hawaiian ancestry, lost in the federal district court in Hawai‘i. An appeal was made to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the decision was reversed in favor of the plaintiff by a three-judge panel in 2005, where the Court held that Kamehameha Schools’ admission policy, with its preference for Native Hawaiians, constituted unlawful race discrimination under federal law. Kamehameha Schools appealed the decision to a 15-judge panel, called En Banc, at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the Court affirmed Kamehameha Schools admission policy as lawful on December 5, 2006. The Court concluded:

King Kamehameha I, on his death bed, is reported to have said, “Tell my people I have planted in the soil of our land the roots of a plan for their happiness.” Princess Pauahi Bishop and Her Legacy at 122. His great granddaughter, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, echoed that sentiment when she established, through her will, the Kamehameha Schools. Because the Schools are a wholly private K-12 educational establishment, whose preferential admissions policy is designed to counteract the significant, current educational deficits of Native Hawaiian children in Hawaii, and because in 1991 Congress clearly intended § 1981 to exist in harmony with its other legislation providing specially for the education of Native Hawaiians, we must conclude that the admissions policy is valid under 42 U.S.C. § 1981.

In its decision, the Court agreed with Kamehameha Schools position that it should review this case with “the more deferential Title VII test for evaluating affirmative action plans, with variations appropriate to the educational context.”

While the Plaintiff’s appeal was pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, Kamehameha Schools settled the lawsuit by paying $7 million. The agreement was signed in May of 2008, thus bringing the lawsuit to a close. Because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that affirmative action in admission policies of educational institutions to be unlawful, Kamehameha Schools cannot rely on their previous position in Doe v. Kamehameha.

Radical Change in the Legal Terrain

Not only has the legal terrain changed for American law and affirmative action, the legal terrain also changed for Hawai‘i because it is now legally proven that Hawai‘i was never a part of the territory of the United States but rather an Occupied State under international law.

The writings of scholars, under international law, is regarded as law-determining and not law making. According to Professor Malcolm Shaw, a British subject, “Because of the lack of supreme authorities and institutions in the international legal order, the responsibility is all the greater upon publicists of the various nations to inject an element of coherence and order into the subject as well as to question the direction and purposes of the rules.” The United States Supreme Court understood the significance of the writings of scholars in international law. In the 1900 Paquette Habana case, the Supreme Court stated:

International law is part of our law, and must be ascertained and administered by the courts of justice of appropriate jurisdiction, as often as questions of right depending upon it are duly presented for their determination. For this purpose, where there is no treaty, and no controlling executive or legislative act or judicial decision, resort must be had to the customs and usages of civilized nations; and, as evidence of these, to the works of jurists and commentators, who by years of labor, research and experience, have made themselves peculiarly well acquainted with the subjects of which they treat. Such works are resorted to by judicial tribunals, not for the speculations of their authors concerning what the law ought to be, but for trustworthy evidence of what the law really is.

The significance of the legal opinion by Professor Matthew Craven, a British subject, on the continuity of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a State under international law, the legal opinion by Professor Federico Lenzerini, an Italian citizen, on the legitimacy of the Council of Regency, and the legal opinion by Professor William Schabas, a Canadian citizen, on war crimes being committed in the Hawaiian Kingdom under the American occupation since 1893, are that all three legal opinions are written by publicists who are scholars and professors in international law. Also included is Dr. Keanu Sai’s chapter “Hawai‘i’s Sovereignty and Survival in the Age of Empire” in Unconquered States: Non-European Powers in the Imperial Age that was published in December of 2024 by Oxford University Press. Oxford University Press recognizes Dr. Sai as a scholar. As such, these writings constitute a source of international law. As the U.S. Supreme Court stated, “the works of jurists and commentators [is considered] trustworthy evidence of what the law really is.”

Of note is Professor Schabas’ legal opinion on war crimes where he specifically addresses the unlawful imposition of American laws, which he refers to as the war crime of usurpation of sovereignty during occupation. American laws include administrative measures, policies, and court decisions. This renders the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and 2023 Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard University irrelevant. Even the U.S. Supreme Court, in United States v. Curtiss-Wright Corporation, emphatically 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. As a member of the family of nations, the right and power of the United States in that field are equal to the right and power of the other members of the international family. Otherwise, the United States is not completely sovereign.

Civil Rights under Hawaiian Kingdom Law

As an Occupied State, only Hawaiian Kingdom law applies over Hawaiian territory, and the Kamehameha Schools is a trust that established under and by virtue of the laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom. In the matter of the will of Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the Hawaiian Kingdom Supreme Court accepted the trust on March 4, 1885. The Kamehameha Schools for Boys opened in 1887 and for Girls in 1894.

During a speech at the Schools first celebration of Founder’s Day on December 19, 1888, Charles Reed Bishop, chair of the original trustees and widow of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, stated that the Princess established the Kamehameha Schools “in order that her own people might have the opportunity for fitting themselves for such competition, and be able to hold their own in a manly and friendly way, without asking any favors which they were not likely to receive, these schools were provided for, in which Hawaiians have the preference, and which she hoped they would value and take the advantages of as fully as possible.” The speech was printed in the Daily Bulletin Weekly Summary newspaper, Honolulu (December 24, 1888).

This admission policy was established because of the intent of the Princess. It is not based on her will. Her will did not address the preference of admitting students of Hawaiian ancestry, but rather providing financial assistance “giving the preference to Hawaiians of pure or part aboriginal blood.” The significance of this speech and its publication in a newspaper makes the intent of the Princess publicly known throughout the kingdom.

Under Hawaiian Kingdom law, this admission policy of preference for students that are aboriginal Hawaiian, both pure and part, is lawful. There are three Hawaiian Kingdom Supreme Court cases that address native or aboriginal Hawaiians within the legal framework of civil rights under Hawaiian constitutional law. These cases are Naone v. Thurston, 1 Haw. 392 (1856) and Rex v. Booth, 2 Haw. 616 (1863) that are appellate cases, while Rex v. Henry H. Sawyer was a criminal trial that came before the Supreme Court at its July Term in 1859. Under Hawaiian Kingdom law, the Supreme Court served not only as an appellate court but also as a trial court.

In Rex v. Booth, the Court addressed the claim of race-based legislation, also called special legislation, which was argued by the defence to be a violation of native or aboriginal Hawaiians’ civil rights under Hawaiian laws. The defense argued, “‘It is an axiom in all constitutional Governments, that all legislative power emanates from the people; the Legislature acts by delegated authority, and only as the agent of the people ;’ that the Hawaiian Constitution was founded by the people; ‘that the Government of this Kingdom proceeds directly from the people, was ordained and established by the people,’ and that it is against all reason and justice to suppose or presume for one moment, that the native subjects of this Kingdom ever entrusted the Legislature with the power to enact such a law as that under discussion.” The Court responded, “Here is a grave mistake—a fundamental error—which is no doubt the source of much misconception. These ideas run through a large part of the case made by the defense, and much of the argument and reasoning predicated upon them, possesses no weight whatever.”

The Court discerns the legal framework of civil rights under Hawaiian constitutional law from other countries, like the United States, that have a republican form of government, which is governance of and for the people. The Hawaiian Kingdom is not a republic but rather a constitutional and limited monarchy. The Court also underscores the Hawaiian Kingdom’s approach to balancing civil rights, legislative authority, and the welfare of its native population within the framework of its Constitution. The Court clarified that civil rights and equality must be interpreted within the broader context of the Hawaiian Constitution, allowing for laws that address specific needs, such as protecting aboriginal Hawaiians, as long as they promote the welfare of the nation.

Booth provides the legal basis for the Kamehameha Schools policy to give preferential acceptance of students who are Hawaiian subjects of pure or part aboriginal blood. While the Court, in Booth, referred to special legislation, it would be called a special policy regarding aboriginal Hawaiians because the Kamehameha Schools is not a legislative body but a private trust. As a private trust, under Hawaiian Kingdon law, it must still adhere to the legal framework of civil rights under Hawaiian constitutional law and that the special policy of admission promotes the welfare of the nation. This is the Hawaiian law version of affirmative action on its terms.

How Kamehameha Schools can Prevail under Hawaiian Kingdom Law

In 1994, the Intermediate Court of Appeals heard an appeal, in State of Hawai‘i v. Lorenzo, where the defendant was challenging the jurisdiction of the trial court because of the illegality of the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom government in 1893. The Appellate Court concluded that “it was incumbent on Defendant to present evidence supporting his claim. Lorenzo has presented no factual (or legal) basis for concluding that the Kingdom exists as a state in accordance with recognized attributes of a state’s sovereign nature. Consequently, his argument that he is subject solely to the Kingdom’s jurisdiction is without merit, and the lower court correctly exercised jurisdiction over him.”

Since 1994, the Lorenzo case became a precedent case that served as the basis for denying defendants’ motions to dismiss that challenged the jurisdiction of State of Hawai‘i courts because defendants provided no evidence of the Hawaiian Kingdom’s existence as a State under international law. Even the federal courts apply the Lorenzo case. The Supreme Court, in State of Hawai‘i v. Armitage (2014), clarified the evidentiary burden that the Lorenzo case placed upon defendants. The Court states:

Lorenzo held that, for jurisdictional purposes, should a defendant demonstrate a factual or legal basis that the [Hawaiian Kingdom] “exists as a state in accordance with recognized attributes of a state’s sovereign nature[,]” and that he or she is a citizen of that sovereign state, a defendant may be able to argue that the courts of the State of Hawai‘i lack jurisdiction over him or her.

Kamehameha Schools can prevail because it has access to all this information from the public domain that provides a “factual or legal basis” that the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist as a State “in accordance with recognized attributes of a state’s sovereign nature,” and that it is a trust “of that sovereign state.”

KalikoVision Podcast in Oregon has Dr. Keanu Sai as a Guest

Posted on August 15, 2025 by Hawaiian Kingdom

Today in Hawai‘i is Statehood Day or Admission Day. It is a holiday for the State of Hawai‘i set for the third Friday in August. It is supposed to commemorate the anniversary of when Hawai‘i was admitted to the American Union in 1959.

On March 18, 1959, the U.S. Congress enacted a statute called An Act To provide for the admission of the State of Hawaii into the Union. This Act of Congress began the process where Hawai‘i would eventually be admitted into the Union. On August 21, 1959, the third Friday of August, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a proclamation making Hawai‘i the 50th State. With the unveiling of a more accurate and objectively true history, the State of Hawai‘i never legally existed in the first place.

In 1999, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, in Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom, recognized the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom as an independent State since the 19th century. And in 2024, Oxford University Press published a chapter by Dr. Keanu Sai “Hawai‘i’s Sovereignty and Survival in the Age of Empire,” in H.E. Chehabi and David Motadel’s book Unconquered States: Non-European Powers in the Imperial Age. In this chapter Dr. Sai covers: the legal and political history of my country—the Hawaiian Kingdom; the evolution of governance as a constitutional monarchy; the unlawful overthrow of the government by United States troops in 1893; the prolonged American occupation since 1893; the restoration of the government of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1997; and the recognition, by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 1999, of the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a State and the Council of Regency as its provisional government. Because the Hawaiian Kingdom currently exists as a State under international law, the State of Hawai‘i cannot simultaneously exist as a State under American law.

In a recently uploaded interview on the podcast called KalikoVision, with host Kaliko Castille, Dr. Sai explains why Hawai‘i was never acquired by the United States and why the State of Hawai‘i does not legally exist.

Hawaiian Kingdom Blog

Weblog of the acting government of the Hawaiian Kingdom presently operating within the occupied State of the Hawaiian Islands.

Category Archives: International Law

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