#alfred de zayas

[artfromthefuture]

Marius de Zayas - portrait of Alfred Stieglitz, 1914

[toscanoirriverente]

GENEVA, September 13, 2024 — Today the UN rapporteur on sanctions will declare that all US, EU, British and Canadian sanctions on China over its human rights abuses constitute illegal “unilateral coercive measures” under international law.

Alena Douhan, a Belarus-based investigator who was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council — under a mandate created by the Iranian regime and other dictatorships — will today in Geneva present a new report that calls for lifting all Western sanctions that have been imposed on the Chinese regime over its human rights abuses against Uighurs, including forced labor, stifling democracy in Hong Kong, and arming sanctioned regimes such as Russia, Iran and North Korea.

“Douhan epitomizes the Orwellian nature of the UN’s human rights system. The world’s worst dictatorships initiated this UN mandate ten years ago in order to declare that all sanctions which seek to hold accountable their regimes for human rights abuses are themselves illegal measures,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, an independent non-governmental human rights group based in Geneva.

Neuer will be taking the floor today in the UN debate with Douhan.

“Absurdly, this so-called UN human rights expert has conducted major propaganda visits for Ayatollah Khamenei’s Islamic Regime in Iran, Assad’s Syria, Maduro’s Venezuela, and now Xi Jinping’s China. She inverts reality and morality by speaking out for the supposed human rights of the perpetrator regimes, instead of speaking for their victims,” said Neuer.

(Watch Video: Alena Douhan at the conclusion of her May 2024 visit to China. “Unilateral sanctions against China do not conform with a broad number of international legal norms and cannot be justified as countermeasures under the law of international responsibility.”)

Prior to being selected for her post in March 2022, Douhan appeared on the 2017 biennial panel on unilateral coercive measures — dubbed the Mother of all Rogues’ Galleries — alongside other longtime UN apologists for dictators like  Jean Ziegler, Idris Jazairy and Alfred de Zayas.

In December 2022, when Iran was condemned at the UN for its assault on protesters in the wake of Mahsa Amini’s death, Douhan penned a letter to the United States blaming all of Iran’s problems on U.S. sanctions.

Douhan’s Office Took $200,000 From China

In 2021, Douhan received $200,000 from China at the same time as she helped the regime whitewash its ethnic cleansing of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, appearing at a Chinese regime propaganda event falsely portraying Xinjiang as a utopia. 

All of Douhan’s country visits to date — to Iran, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Qatar, and Syria — have been propaganda opportunities for those regimes to whitewash their human rights abuses.

Her report on Syria, which she visited in 2022, commended the Assad regime for its “cooperation,” and declared that Western sanctions against the regime “may amount to a crime against humanity, against all Syrian people.”

[myweddingsandevents]

Alfred de Zayas: "Every refusal to negotiate contravenes international law." Mrs Kallas should be sued.Every provocation constitutes a violation of article 39 of the Charter and calls for immediate UN action. Every escalation, every refusal to negotiate contravenes international law. The failure of UN Secretary General to condemn NATO provocations has failed us all.

[ferrolano-blog]

El bloqueo impuesto a Venezuela ha tenido efectos devastadores... el relator especial para la ONU, Alfred de Zayas, calculó que 100 mil venezolanos habrían muerto como resultado de las sanciones. Dos años después, la relatora especial de la ONU, Alena Douhan, detalló cómo el embargo a la industria petrolera, las sanciones secundarias, la apropiación de bienes venezolanos en el extranjero y la negativa de bancos a tratar con el país por miedo a represalias, han devastado los sistemas de alimentación, de salud, de educación, de infraestructura y han propiciado una enorme emigración... los recursos que se perdieron debido a esta guerra económica hubieran alcanzado para importar alimentos y medicinas suficientes para 45 años o para financiar el sistema de salud público y privado por 29 años

[yghysn]

Hawaii & Okinawa Demilitarization & Self-Determination | Alfred de Zayas...

[korrektheiten]

Wiedervorlage (17): Wir schwimmen in einem Meer von Lügen

Sezession:»von Alfred de Zayas – Übernommen von counterpunch.org und übersetzt mit freundlicher Genehmigung des Autors. Im Juni 1971, auf dem Höhepunkt des Vietnamkriegs, veröffentlichte Dr. Daniel Ellsberg in der New York Times und der Washington Post die so genannten “Pentagon Papers”. Ellsberg war ein Militärberater der US-Regierung (als solcher langjährig für den Thinktank Rand Corporation […] http://dlvr.it/SwdHj6 «

[thefree-online]

The Dynamics of War Insanity: NATO’s Ukraine Roulette

By Alfred de Zayas Source: Information Clearing House Deliberate provocations of a nuclear rival, coups d’état, colour revolutions, broken promises, broken treaties, escalation of tensions, demonization, invective, double-standards — all this while asserting adherence to international legal norms and playing innocent about our aggressions, our violations of the Hague and Geneva Conventions, of…

[pdj-france]

De nouvelles mesures du télescope japonais Subaru ont aidé les chercheurs à étudier le problème de l'asymétrie matière-antimatière. Javier Zayas Photographie / Moment via GettyQuand des physiciens théoriciens comme moi disent que nous étudions pourquoi l'univers existe, nous parlons comme des philosophes. Mais de nouvelles données recueillies par des chercheurs utilisant le télescope japonais Subaru ont révélé des informations sur cette question. Le télescope japonais Subaru, situé sur le Mauna Kea à Hawaï. Panorama/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-ND Le Big Bang a donné le coup d'envoi à l'univers tel que nous le connaissons il y a 13,8 milliards d'années. De nombreuses théories en physique des particules suggèrent que pour toute la matière créée à la conception de l'univers, une quantité égale d'antimatière aurait dû être créée à ses côtés. L'antimatière, comme la matière, a une masse et occupe de l'espace. Cependant, les particules d'antimatière présentent les propriétés opposées de leurs particules de matière correspondantes. Lorsque des morceaux de matière et d'antimatière entrent en collision, ils s'annihilent dans une puissante explosion, ne laissant derrière eux que de l'énergie. La chose déroutante à propos des théories qui prédisent la création d'un équilibre égal de matière et d'antimatière est que si elles étaient vraies, les deux se seraient totalement anéanties, laissant l'univers vide. Il devait donc y avoir plus de matière que d'antimatière à la naissance de l'univers, parce que l'univers n'est pas vide – il est plein de choses faites de matière comme les galaxies, les étoiles et les planètes. Un peu d'antimatière existe autour de nous, mais c'est très rare. En tant que physicien travaillant sur les données Subaru, je m'intéresse à ce soi-disant problème d'asymétrie matière-antimatière. Dans notre étude récente, mes collaborateurs et moi avons découvert que la nouvelle mesure par le télescope de la quantité et du type d'hélium dans les galaxies lointaines pourrait offrir une solution à ce mystère de longue date. Après le Big Bang Dans les premières millisecondes après le Big Bang, l'univers était chaud, dense et plein de particules élémentaires comme des protons, des neutrons et des électrons nageant dans un plasma. Également présents dans ce pool de particules se trouvaient des neutrinos, qui sont de très petites particules interagissant faiblement, et des antineutrinos, leurs homologues de l'antimatière. Le Big Bang a créé des particules fondamentales qui constituent d'autres particules comme les protons et les neutrons. Les neutrinos sont un autre type de particule fondamentale. Alfred Pasieka/Photothèque scientifique via Getty Images Les physiciens pensent qu'une seconde seulement après le Big Bang, les noyaux d'éléments légers comme l'hydrogène et l'hélium ont commencé à se former. Ce processus est connu sous le nom de nucléosynthèse du Big Bang. Les noyaux formés étaient composés d'environ 75 % de noyaux d'hydrogène et de 24 % de noyaux d'hélium, plus de petites quantités de noyaux plus lourds. La théorie la plus largement acceptée par la communauté des physiciens sur la formation de ces noyaux nous dit que les neutrinos et les antineutrinos ont joué un rôle fondamental dans la création, en particulier, des noyaux d'hélium. La création d'hélium dans l'univers primitif s'est déroulée en deux étapes. Premièrement, les neutrons et les protons se sont convertis de l'un à l'autre dans une série de processus impliquant des neutrinos et des antineutrinos. Lorsque l'univers s'est refroidi, ces processus se sont arrêtés et le rapport protons/neutrons a été établi. En tant que physiciens théoriciens, nous pouvons créer des modèles pour tester comment le rapport des protons aux neutrons dépend du nombre relatif de neutrinos et d'antineutrinos dans l'univers primitif.

Si plus de neutrinos étaient présents, alors nos modèles montrent plus de protons et moins de neutrons existeraient en conséquence. Lorsque l'univers s'est refroidi, de l'hydrogène, de l'hélium et d'autres éléments se sont formés à partir de ces protons et neutrons. L'hélium est composé de deux protons et de deux neutrons, et l'hydrogène n'est qu'un proton et aucun neutron. Ainsi, moins il y aurait de neutrons disponibles dans l'univers primitif, moins il y aurait de production d'hélium. Étant donné que les noyaux formés lors de la nucléosynthèse du Big Bang peuvent encore être observés aujourd'hui, les scientifiques peuvent déduire combien de neutrinos et d'antineutrinos étaient présents au début de l'univers. Pour ce faire, ils étudient spécifiquement les galaxies riches en éléments légers comme l'hydrogène et l'hélium. Dans une série de collisions de particules à haute énergie, des éléments comme l'hélium se forment dans l'univers primitif. Ici, D représente le deutérium, un isotope de l'hydrogène avec un proton et un neutron, et γ représente les photons, ou particules légères. Dans la série de réactions en chaîne illustrées, les protons et les neutrons fusionnent pour former du deutérium, puis ces noyaux de deutérium fusionnent pour former des noyaux d'hélium. Anne-Katherine Burns Un indice sur l'hélium L'année dernière, la collaboration Subaru - un groupe de scientifiques japonais travaillant sur le télescope Subaru - a publié des données sur 10 galaxies éloignées de la nôtre qui sont presque exclusivement composées d'hydrogène et d'hélium. En utilisant une technique qui permet aux chercheurs de distinguer différents éléments les uns des autres en fonction des longueurs d'onde de la lumière observées dans le télescope, les scientifiques de Subaru ont déterminé exactement la quantité d'hélium présente dans chacune de ces 10 galaxies. Surtout, ils ont trouvé moins d'hélium que ne le prévoyait la théorie précédemment acceptée. Avec ce nouveau résultat, mes collaborateurs et moi avons travaillé à rebours pour trouver le nombre de neutrinos et d'antineutrinos nécessaires pour produire l'abondance d'hélium trouvée dans les données. Repensez à votre cours de mathématiques de neuvième année lorsqu'on vous a demandé de résoudre pour "X" dans une équation. Ce que mon équipe a fait était essentiellement la version la plus sophistiquée de cela, où notre "X" était le nombre de neutrinos ou d'antineutrinos. La théorie précédemment acceptée prévoyait qu'il devrait y avoir le même nombre de neutrinos et d'antineutrinos dans l'univers primitif. Cependant, lorsque nous avons peaufiné cette théorie pour nous donner une prédiction qui correspondait au nouvel ensemble de données, nous avons constaté que le nombre de neutrinos était supérieur au nombre d'antineutrinos. Qu'est-ce que tout cela veut dire? Cette analyse de nouvelles données de galaxies riches en hélium a une conséquence de grande portée : elle peut être utilisée pour expliquer l'asymétrie entre la matière et l'antimatière. Les données de Subaru nous dirigent directement vers une source de ce déséquilibre : les neutrinos. Dans cette étude, mes collaborateurs et moi avons prouvé que cette nouvelle mesure de l'hélium est cohérente avec le fait qu'il y avait plus de neutrinos que d'antineutrinos dans l'univers primitif. Grâce à des processus de physique des particules connus et probables, l'asymétrie dans les neutrinos pourrait se propager en une asymétrie dans toute la matière. Le résultat de notre étude est un type de résultat courant dans le monde de la physique théorique. Fondamentalement, nous avons découvert une manière viable de produire l'asymétrie matière-antimatière, mais cela ne signifie pas qu'elle a définitivement été produite de cette manière. Le fait que les données correspondent à notre théorie est un indice que la théorie que nous avons proposée pourrait être la bonne, mais ce fait à lui seul ne signifie pas qu'elle l'est.

Alors, ces minuscules petits neutrinos sont-ils la clé pour répondre à la question séculaire : « Pourquoi quelque chose existe-t-il ? » Selon cette nouvelle recherche, ils pourraient bien l'être. Anne-Katherine Burns ne travaille pas pour, ne consulte pas, ne détient pas d'actions ou ne reçoit de financement d'aucune entreprise ou organisation qui bénéficierait de cet article, et n'a divulgué aucune affiliation pertinente au-delà de sa nomination universitaire. Source

[christinamac1]

The Dynamics of War Insanity: NATO’s Ukraine Roulette

By Alfred de Zayas / CounterPunch  https://scheerpost.com/2023/07/20/the-dynamics-of-war-insanity-natos-ukraine-roulette/ Deliberate provocations of a nuclear rival, coups d’état, colour revolutions, broken promises, broken treaties, escalation of tensions, demonization, invective, double-standards — all this while asserting adherence to international legal norms and playing innocent about our…

[jefferylorangerstuff-blog]

Die Wehrmacht-Untersuchungsstelle | Alfred de Zayas im Gespräch [Deutsch...

[rifondazione]

Alfred de Zayas: La guerra in Ucraina alla luce della Carta delle Nazioni Unite

http://dlvr.it/Sj5CMv

[progressivemillennial]

In the latest Empire Files @empirefiles, Abby Martin discussed Venezuela with UN Investigator and Human Rights Rapporteur Alfred De Zayas. The 40 minute video is worth your time, but if you don’t have 40 minutes, I’ve transcribed some of the most noteworthy quotes below for your perusal.

De Zayas: “From Iraq to Libya to Venezuela, what usually pre-empts U.S. military intervention is the pretext of a humanitarian crisis. And right now, pretty much everyone speaks with authority about the fact that there is a human rights crisis caused by the Maduro government.”

De Zayas: “If you know a humanitarian crisis in Gaza and in Yemen and in Syria and in Sudan and in Somalia, you wouldn’t say there is a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, and at no point when I was walking in the streets in Venezuela did I feel threatened or did I see violence or did I consider that this country was undergoing a humanitarian crisis, but I see human rights more and more being instrumentalized to destroy human rights. There is a weaponization of human rights. I see the rule of law being instrumentalized to destroy the rule of law, and unfortunately the complicity of the mainstream media.”

De Zayas: “What is particularly Machiavellian, what is particularly cynical is to cause an economic crisis that threatens to become a humanitarian crisis. That’s what the United States has done through the financial blockade, through the sanctions. And then say ‘oh, we’re going to offer you humanitarian help.’”

De Zayas: “The solution of the problem is much easier than the Band-Aid of sending some packages of food or of medicine. The solution is in my report. What I told the Human Rights Council is that the financial blockade has had extremely adverse human rights impacts.”

De Zayas: “I am certain that the increase in child mortality, the increase in maternal mortality, the increased death for lack of insulin or anti-retroviral drugs is a direct result of this blockage so that Venezuela has not been able to purchase what its people deserve. It’s not like the government does not want to distribute. It’s that the government is being, through an external economic war, is being asphyxiated, and that was the name of the game.”

De Zayas: “What the United States intended to do was to create a situation whereby the people or the military would topple the government and then the 1% could again come in and could again control the wealth of Venezuela.”

De Zayas: “Sanctions kill.”

De Zayas: “When you deliberately impose sanctions and financial blockades and an economic war that asphyxiates a country’s economy, and thereby make it very difficult for that country to provide the necessary food and medicines to its population, and as a consequence, thousands of people die, you have a case of crime against humanity. But the narrative in the mainstream press completely ignores it.”

Martin: “As usual, the African continent is erased from the dialog. There, 51 countries recognize Maduro. Only one, Morocco, recognized Guaido. Then, there’s Asia and Oceania, where again, only Australia recognized Guaido. The other 33 nations recognize Maduro. Moving on to the Middle East, where staunch U.S. ally Israel is the only country to recognize Guaido. The rest in the region continue to support Maduro’s presidency.” Martin goes on to show that Europe and Latin America are split on who they support.

Martin: “By [saying that the] international community [supports Guaido], they really just mean a minority led by the white imperialist and colonizer nations, erasing non-white nations as members of the international community.”

De Zayas: “We all believe in the rule of law. We all believe in the separation of powers, in checks and balances. This national assembly, since Day 1 when it was elected in 2015, aimed at a parliamentary coup against Maduro. The program was called la salida (the exit).”

De Zayas: “It had been determined at least three deputies—parliamentarians—had been elected through fraud. This was demonstrated, and the Supreme Court was called to make a decision and they instructed the National Assembly as it is foreseen in the constitution of Venezuela to re-run those elections. And this National Assembly was confrontational. It was intransigent. It didn’t want to do that, so it was declared in contempt. So since that moment on, whatever the National Assembly does, has no legal validity in the context of Venezuelan constitutional law. It’s not for us Americans or Swiss or French to say we disagree.”

Martin: “Venezuela’s voting system has more checks and verifications than most countries. A system of voter cards, fingerprints, and more make fraud near impossible.”

Martin: “Surprisingly, it was the opposition who asked the UN to not send observers to the 2018 election, which could have proved alleged voter fraud. The opposition could have actually won that election, but instead they boycotted it. Nobody should run, and nobody should vote.”

Martin: “In the end, Maduro won with 6.2 million votes, which is 31% of eligible voters. This is the same percentage Barack Obama won in the 2008 election.”

De Zayas: “We’ve been talking about fake news, about the ocean of lies that we read in the papers every day. But it’s not just the lies that create the problem. It is the absence of information. When a whole dimension is suppressed, and you do not hear anything about other points of view, sooner or later, you accept the narrative that yes, there is a humanitarian crisis, ergo you need a humanitarian intervention.”

De Zayas: “There is, and has been for a while, a human rights industry. Since 1980 when I joined the office…I’ve had the opportunity of observing the behavior of non-governmental organizations, organizations that started out very, very committed for human rights and really honestly concerned with the suffering of human beings have been bought out. The donors essentially set the music.”

Martin: “The opposition against Maduro is broad and comprised of many factions: moderates, progressives, even some socialists. They oppose Maduro but respect the constitution and democratic process. But the faction currently trying to seize power is the extreme right.”

De Zayas: “What will happen if the coup goes through is that you will have what Naomi Klein called the disaster capitalism forced down the throat of the Venezuelan people. You will have retrogression in the enjoyment of economic, social, and cultural rights. You will have the privatization not only of the oil industry but you will have privatization of gold mining and bauxite mining and coltan mining. They will do away with healthcare, they will do away with subsidized housing, et cetera.”

De Zayas: “Maduro has been asking the opposition for dialog since the elections in 2015.”

De Zayas: “And I told that to members of the opposition. You may topple Maduro, but the 7, 8 or 9 million committed Chavistas are not simply going to roll over. They are not going to disappear. So you may find yourself in the position of a bloody civil war. Do you want that for your people?”

[libertariantaoist]

On “The Last American Vagabond”  today is a very special guest, an expert in the field of human rights and international law and retired high-ranking United Nations official. From 2012-2018, he was the UN Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order, not to mention, lawyer, writer, historian, and that is Alfred De Zayas.

[freehawaii]

HEREʻS THE ARTICLE MENTIONED ON FREE HAWAI`I TV YESTERDAY

  NEA Today - October 1, 2018 - By Chris Santomauro

In his message to the Congress on December 18, 1893, President Grover Cleveland acknowledged that the Hawaiian Kingdom was unlawfully invaded by United States marines on January 16, 1893, which led to an illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian government the following day. The President told the Congress that he “instructed Minister Willis to advise the Queen and her supporters of [his] desire to aid in the restoration of the status existing before the lawless landing of the United States forces at Honolulu on the 16th of January last, if such restoration could be effected upon terms providing for clemency as well as justice to all parties concerned (U.S House of Representatives, 53d Cong., Executive Documents on Affairs in Hawaii: 1894-95, p. 458).”

What the President didn’t know at the time he gave his message was that Minister Willis succeeded in securing an agreement with the Queen that committed the United States to restore her as the Executive Monarch, and, thereafter, the Queen committed to granting amnesty to the insurgents. International law recognizes this executive agreement as a treaty. The President, however, did not carry out his duty under the treaty to restore the Queen, and, consequently, the Queen did not grant amnesty to the insurgents. The state of war continued.

Insurgency Continues to Seek Annexation to the United States

President Cleveland acknowledged that those individuals who he sought the Queen’s consent to grant amnesty were not a government at all. In fact, he stated they were “neither a government de facto nor de jure (p. 453).” Instead, the President referred to these individuals as “insurgents (Id.),” which by definition are rebels who revolt against an established government. Under Chapter VI of the Hawaiian Penal Code a revolt against the government is treason, which carries the punishment of death and property of the convicted is seized by the Hawaiian government.

On July 3, 1894, the insurgents renamed themselves the Republic of Hawai‘i and continued to seek annexation with the United States. Article 32 of its so-called constitution states, “The President, with the approval of the Cabinet, is hereby expressly authorized and empowered to make a Treaty of Political or Commercial Union between the Republic of Hawaii and the United States of America, subject to the ratification of the Senate.” The insurgents always sought to be annexed by the United States.

After President William McKinley succeeded President Cleveland in office he entered into a treaty of annexation with the insurgents on June 16, 1897, in Washington, D.C. The following day, Queen Lili‘uokalani, who was also in Washington, submitted a formal protest with the State Department. Her protest stated:

“I, Liliuokalani of Hawaii, by the will of God named heir apparent on the tenth day of April, A.D. 1877, and by the grace of God Queen of the Hawaiian Islands on the seventeenth day of January, A.D. 1893, do hereby protest against the ratification of a certain treaty, which, so I am informed, has been signed at Washington by Messrs. Hatch, Thurston, and Kinney, purporting to cede those Islands to the territory and dominion of the United States. I declare such a treaty to be an act of wrong toward the native and part-native people of Hawaii, an invasion of the rights of the ruling chiefs, in violation of international rights both toward my people and toward friendly nations with whom they have made treaties, the perpetuation of the fraud whereby the constitutional government was overthrown, and, finally, an act of gross injustice to me.”

Additional protests were filed with the State Department by two Hawaiian political organizations—the Men and Women’s Hawaiian Patriotic League (Hui Aloha ‘Aina), and the Hawaiian Political Association (Hui Kalai‘aina). President McKinley ignored these protests and was preparing to submit the so-called treaty for ratification by the Senate when the Congress would reconvene in December of 1897.

This prompted the Hawaiian Patriotic League to gather of 21,169 signatures from the Hawaiian citizenry and residents throughout the islands opposing annexation. On December 9, 1897, Senator George Hoar of Massachusetts entered the petition into the Senate record.

Under the Queen’s instructions, the delegates from the two Hawaiian political organizations who were in Washington began to meet with Senators who supported ratifying the so-called treaty. Sixty votes were necessary to accomplish ratification and there were already fifty-eight commitments. By the time the Hawaiian delegation left Washington on February 27, 1897, they had successfully chiseled the fifty-eight 

Senators in support of annexation down to forty-six.

Unable to garner the necessary sixty votes, the so-called treaty was dead by March, yet war with Spain was looming over the horizon, and Hawai‘i would have to face the belligerency of the United States once again. American military interest would be the driving forces to fortify the islands as an outpost to protect the United States from foreign invasion.

Annexation by Legislation

On April 25, 1897, one month after the treaty was killed, Congress declared war on Spain. The Spanish-American War was not waged in Spain, but rather in the Spanish colonies of Puerto Rico and Cuba in the Caribbean, and in the colonies of the Philippines and Guam in the Pacific. On May 1, 1898, Commodore George Dewey defeated the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay in the Philippines.

Three days later in Washington, D.C., Congressman Francis Newlands submitted a joint resolution for the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands to House Committee on Foreign Affairs on May 4. On May 17, the joint resolution was reported out of the committee and headed to the floor of the House of Representatives.

On June 15, 1898, Congressman Thomas H. Ball from Texas emphatically stated, “The annexation of Hawai‘i by joint resolution is unconstitutional, unnecessary, and unwise. …Why, sir, the very presence of this measure here is the result of a deliberate attempt to do unlawfully that which can not be done lawfully (31 Cong. Rec. 5975).”

When the resolution reached the Senate, Senator Augustus Bacon from Georgia sarcastically remarked that, the “friends of annexation, seeing that it was not possible to make this treaty in the manner pointed out by the Constitution, attempted then to nullify the provision of in the Constitution by putting that treaty in the form of a statute, and here we have embodied the provisions of the treaty in the joint resolution which comes to us from the House (31 Cong. Rec. 6150).” Senator Bacon further explained, “That a joint resolution for the annexation of foreign territory was necessarily and essentially the subject matter of a treaty, and that it could not be accomplished legally and constitutionally by a statute or joint resolution (31 Cong. Rec. 6148).”

Despite the objections from Senators and Representatives, it managed to get a majority vote and President McKinley signed the joint resolution into law on July 7, 1898. The military buildup began in August of 1898 with the first army base in Waikiki called Camp McKinley. Today there are 118 military sites throughout the Hawaiian Islands and it serves as the headquarters for the United States Indo-Pacific Command.

Many government officials and constitutional scholars could not explain how a joint resolution could have the extra-territorial force and effect of a treaty in annexing Hawai‘i, a foreign and sovereign state. During the 19th century, Born states, “American courts, commentators, and other authorities understood international law as imposing strict territorial limits on national assertions of legislative jurisdiction (Gary Born, International Civil Litigation in United States Courts, p. 493).”

In 1824, the United Supreme Court explained that, “the legislation of every country is territorial,” and that the “laws of no nation can justly extend beyond its own territory (Rose v. Himely, 8 U.S. 241, p. 279),” for it would be “at variance with the independence and sovereignty of foreign nations (The Apollon, 22 U.S. 362, p. 370).”

In violation of international law and the treaties with the Hawaiian Kingdom, the United States maintained the insurgents’ control until the Congress could reorganize the insurgency so that it would look like a government. On April 30, 1900, the U.S. Congress changed the name of the Republic of Hawai‘i to the Territory of Hawai‘i. Later, on March 18, 1959, the U.S. Congress, again by statute, changed the name of the Territory of Hawai‘i to the State of Hawai‘i.

In 1988, Acting Assistant United States Attorney General, Douglas W. Kmiec, drew attention to this American dilemma in a memorandum opinion written for the Legal Advisor for the Department of State regarding legal issues raised by the proposed Presidential proclamation to extend the territorial sea from a three-mile limit to twelve (Opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel, vol. 12, p. 238-263). After concluding that only the President and not the Congress possesses “the constitutional authority to assert either sovereignty over an extended territorial sea or jurisdiction over it under international law on behalf of the United States (Id., p. 242),” Kmiec also concluded that it was “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 (Id., p. 262).”

Kmiec cited United States constitutional scholar Westel Woodbury Willoughby, who wrote in 1929, “The constitutionality of the annexation of Hawaii, by a simple legislative act, was strenuously contested at the time both in 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 enacted it (Id., p. 252).”

In 1910, Willoughby wrote, “The incorporation of one sovereign State, such as was Hawaii prior to annexation, in the territory of another, is…essentially a matter falling within the domain of international relations, and, therefore, beyond the reach of legislative acts (Willoughby, The Constitutional Law of the United States, vol. 1, p. 345).”

United Nations Acknowledges the Occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom

In a communication to the State of Hawai‘i dated February 25, 2018 from Dr. Alfred M. deZayas, a United Nations Independent Expert, the UN official acknowledged the prolonged occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom. He wrote:

“As a professor of international law, the former Secretary of the UN Human Rights Committee, co-author of book, The United Nations Human Rights Committee Case Law 1977-2008, and currently serving as the UN Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, I have come to understand that the lawful political status of the Hawaiian Islands is that of a sovereign nation-state that is under a strange form of occupation by the United States resulting from an illegal military occupation and a fraudulent annexation. As such, international laws (the Hague and Geneva Conventions) require that governance and legal matters within the occupied territory of the Hawaiian Islands must be administered by the application of the laws of the occupied state (in this case, the Hawaiian Kingdom), not the domestic laws of the occupier (the United States).”

A state of peace between the Hawaiian Kingdom and the United States was transformed to a state of war when United States troops invaded the Hawaiian Kingdom on January 16, 1893, and illegally overthrew the Hawaiian government the following day. Only by way of a treaty of peace can the state of affairs be transformed back to a state of peace. The 1907 Hague Convention, IV, and the 1949 Geneva Convention, IV, mentioned by the UN official regulate the occupying State during a state of war.

[gacougnol]

Marius de Zayas

Alfred Stieglitz, The Midwife to Ideas

1908 - 1909