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Hawaiian Kingdom Deposits Instrument of Accessionto the Jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court with the United Nations Secretary-General in New York

NEW YORK, December 10, 2012 — This afternoon the Ambassador-at-large and Agent for the acting Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom, H.E. David Keanu Sai, Ph.D., filed with the United Nations Secretary General in New York an instrument of accession acceding to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC is a permanent and independent tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, that prosecutes individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The ICC only prosecutes individuals and not States.

The instrument of accession was deposited with the United Nations Secretary-General in accordance with Article 125(3) of the ICC Rome Statute, which provides, “This Statute shall be open to accession by all States. Instruments of accession shall be deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.” The instrument of accession was received and acknowledged by Mrs. Bernadette Mutirende of the United Nations Treaty Section, Office of Legal Affairs, at 380 Madison Avenue, New York.

By acceeding to the ICC Rome Statute, the Hawaiian Kingdom, as a State, accepted the exercise of the ICC’s jurisdiction over war crimes committed within its territory by its own nationals as well as war crimes committed by nationals of States that are not State Parties to the ICC Rome Statute, such as the United States of America. According to Article 13 of the ICC Rome Statute, the Court may exercise its jurisdiction if a situation is referred to the ICC’s Prosecutor by the Hawaiian Kingdom who is now a State Party by accession.

The current situation in the Hawaiian Islands arises out of the prolonged and illegal occupation of the entire territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom by the United States of America since the Spanish-American War on August 12, 1898, and the failure on the part of the United States of America to establish a direct system of administering the laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom. The United States disguised its occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom as if a treaty of cession annexed the Hawaiian Islands. There is no treaty.

On August 10, 2012 a Protest and Demand of the prolonged occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom, being a non-Member State of the United Nations, was deposited with the President of the United Nations General Assembly pursuant to Article 35(2) of the United Nations Charter. The Protest and Demand was acknowledged and received by Mrs. Hanifa Mezoui, Ph.D., Special Coordinator, Third Committee and Civil Society, Office of the President of the Sixty-Sixth Session of the General Assembly.

Individuals of the State of Hawai‘i government who have committed a war crimehave been reported to the United States Pacific Command and the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Switzerland, for deliberately denying a fair and regular trial to Defendants, irrespective of nationality, and with the Hawaiian Kingdom’s accession to the jurisdiction of the ICC, these alleged war criminals will now come under the prosecutorial authority of the Prosecutor of the ICC.

Regarding the occupation of Hawaiian territory, the ICC is authorized under the Rome Statute to prosecute individuals for:

• war crime of destruction and appropriation of property;
• war crime of denying a fair trial;
• war crime of unlawful deportation and transfer of persons to another State;
• war crime of unlawful confinement;
• the transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies;
• war crime of destroying protected objects dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments;
• war crime of destroying or seizing the property of the Occupied State;
• war crime of compelling participation in military operations;
• war crime of outrages upon personal dignity;
• war crime of displacing civilians. 

H.E. David Keanu Sai, Ph.D. represented the acting Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom in arbitral proceedings before the Permanent Court of Arbitration, Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom, (119 International Law Reports 566), at The Hague, Netherlands, and also did an interview with South-South News, a news agencey of the United Nations, regarding the prolonged occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

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Keanu Sai's website:  http://www.hawaiiankingdom.org/