Document Type

Article

Disciplines

International Law

Abstract

It hardly requires stating that human society is still suffering from the consequences of colonial rule throughout which more powerful nations dominated weaker ones with an intention to either rule temporarily or permanently. Political domination is not the only element that is prevalent in colonization; it often also involves the imposition of social values and thoughts on the colonized people.

Historical experience generally reveals that this form of colonization has occurred primarily either in the name of trade (e.g., the British experience in North America or the Indian sub-continent, the latter of which was initially started between the Emperor of India and the British West Indies Company with subsequent backing by the British government, while the former included a Royal Charter to the Hudson Bay Company), or in the name of religion (e.g., the Catholicization of Latin America or New France). Apart from these methods of colonization, the colonial powers also used other techniques, such as making treaties with a weaker country under a cloud of undue influence and the threatened use of force. This often occurred under many of the treaties made after the late eighteenth century by the Crown or the American government with aboriginal people in Canada and the continental United States. In case the indigenous country refused to enter into a treaty, then the colonial power would frequently undermine or overthrow the legitimate government and install a more accommodating one. The objective has always been either economic or strategic gains. That is why McNair aptly described long ago that:

[I]f international society is to survive, it must evolve some machinery for stigmatizing as void treaties which are concluded as the result of force or undue pressure or in breach of the existing obligations of the parties.

The purpose of this essay is to consider the question of the legal validity of the annexation treaty between the United States of America and the Republic of Hawaii of June 16, 1897 and the subsequent activities of the U.S. government. Particular assistance in the analysis of the historical record has been drawn from the submission made by Hayden F. Burgess, Vice President of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples, before the Disciplinary Board of the Hawaii Supreme Court on September 8, 1985.2 Burgess was called to respond to the charge that he violated DR 7-106(C)(6) of the Hawaii Code of Professional Responsibility, i.e., for willfully failing "to rise for the Supreme Court Justices upon their entry and departure from the Supreme Court Courtroom prior to and following oral argument."

This essay is divided into three parts. The first one concentrates on the aggression committed by the United States against the independent country of Hawaii. The second part addresses the denial of the right to self-determination for the Hawaiian people by the United States. Finally, the third section discusses the legal status of that unequal treaty.

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