Akaka bill violates international law

In the Advertiser today, Kekuni Blaisdell, Kihei Soli Niheu, Terrilee Napua Keko'olani, Puanani Rogers, Foster Kekahuna Ampong and Baron K.F. Ching have a sort of open letter structured as a resolution to the secretary general of the UN and secretary of state of the US, concluding that the bill "is a serious breach of international law, such that the U.S. Senate must immediately cease and desist from considering said bill any further."

I agree with their basic conclusion. However, I disagree with their approach of focusing on the U.N. List of Non-Self-Governing Territories eligible for decolonization. I agree that the way Hawaii was removed from the list (the so-called plebiscite for statehood where only American citizens including military personnel were allowed to vote on a question that only gave the option of statehood and not independence as required) was not a valid act of self-determination. But the larger point is that Hawaii should never have been put on the list in the first place. Hawaii is the only territory on the list that was a fully recognized independent country. Article 73 of the UN Charter says it is for "territories whose peoples have not yet attained a full measure of self-government." In fact, Hawaii had previously attained a full measure of self-government, and no one disputes that; the legal order still exists, but the government has just been made ineffective due to prolonged illegal foreign occupation of its territory. So we don't need to "decolonize" Hawaii, but rather end the occupation of its territory. In my opinion, the international law relevant to the question of Hawaii is not article 73 and the decolonization process, but mainly the 1907 Hague Conventions, particularly IV and V (the latter because Hawaii was recognized as a neutral country).

Also, I applaud the fact that they have included Hawaiian kingdom national descendants. However, I just want to make a point with regard to the term Kanaka Maoli. While I know that today it is very common to use the term Kanaka Maoli to refer to anyone who is part Hawaiian ethnically, Keanu Sai has pointed out that historically this term was used to mean only pure aboriginal Hawaiian. In the 1986 Hawaiian Dictionary, revised and enlarged edition, by Pukui and Elbert, the term kanaka maoli is defined as "Full-blooded Hawaiian person." This is consistent with the census reports, in particular the 1890 census, that has a Hawaiian and English versions of templates used for recordation. It has a category listed as Kanaka Maoli in Hawaiian and "Pure" in English, as well as Hapa in Hawaiian and "Part" in English.

Posted: Sat - March 19, 2005 at 09:39 AM

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Akaka bill violates international law

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