The Legitimate Government in Hawaii Series: Law Professor Williamson Chang's Legal Research on Occupied Hawaii

The Legitimate Government in Hawaii Series: Law Professor Williamson Chang's Legal Research on Occupied Hawaii

Reposted by Amelia Gora (2025)

The following information was found on Ken Conklin's website:

University of Hawaii at Manoa Law Professor Williamson Chang in response to Ken Conklin:

"I have three critiques of Mr. Conklin, as to his criticism 1) He doesn't read; 2) he makes any scholarship in this area into an ugly UFC fight, and 3) he does not support his work with references or reason.

1. He doesn't read:

Clearly, he does not know anything of my work. He critiques my work without reading it, and without addressing any of the evidence I present--and I have presented it publicly, something Mr. Conklin is loathe to do as to his own theories.

Apparently, he has not read my most recent publication: See Chang, Darkness over Hawaii: The Annexation Myth is the Greatest Obstacle to Progress 16 Asia-Pacific Journal of Law and Policy 70 (2015)
http://www.hawaii.edu/aplpj/current-issue/. [Ken Conklin's note January 2017: The correct permanent link for the "Darkness" essay is
http://blog.hawaii.edu/aplpj/files/2015/09/APLPJ_16_2_Chang.pdf ]

Nor has Mr. Conklin read any of my works that have been posted for more than a year, such as the appendix to my testimony to the Board of Regents: "The Testimony in Person of Williamson B.C. Chang, Professor of Law, April 16, 2015 Re: The Management of the Mauna Kea and the Mauna Kea Science Reserve; Professor of Law, William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawai'i at Manoa http://hdl.handle.net/10125/35797 and the second half of the evidence that the United States never acquired the Hawaiian Islands: "A Rope of Sand:" A Documentary History of the Failure of the United States to Annex the Hawaiian Islands Part II, http://hdl.handle.net/10125/35796.

Mr. Conklin would be far more credible if he could rebut the evidence presented in those articles. II. He doesn't understand what he is reading: My position is as follows--
1) The United States never acquired the Hawaiian Islands;
2) The United States asserts absolute and total control, by force, over the Hawaiian Islands;
3) Therefore the United States "occupies" Hawaii in some sense, belligerent or not, See Benevenisti "The International law of Occupation," (Oxford 2012)
4) The United States applies its laws and may apply its Constitution as a matter of occupation law,
5)Under occupation, the occupant United States has imposed its legal system over Hawaii; and that
6) If the United States followed the "Rule of Law" and applied its own laws and statutes of Congress and Constitution of the State of Hawaii [Article XV section 1], it is clear that by the admission of the United States, the Hawaiian Islands are not within the territorial boundaries of the State of Hawaii or the United States.
7) The people of Hawaii are by, the United States and its monopoly on the use of violence to impose its law, made subject to the laws and judicial institutions erected in Hawaii by the United States.
8) As an occupying power, the United States enforces its laws in Hawaii, a foreign country, in much the same manner that the United States enforces its laws in Guantanamo Bay. [Even though Guantanamo Bay is sovereign territory of the foreign nation of Cuba--Bush v. Boumediene;]
9) If the United States were to follow the rule of law, and apply its own laws of its own Congress:
a) namely, The Joint Resolution 30 Stat 750;
b) Section 2 of the Organic Act 31 Stat 14;
c) Sections 2 and 7(b) the Admission Act, 73 Stat 4,
10) The United States would be compelled to concede that; the Hawaiians Islands were not territory of the United States, and that;
11) The United States has never had de jure jurisdiction over Hawaii or ownership of the crown and government lands of the Hawaiian Islands;
12) Which makes my application of the United States Constitution to Hawaii, a law that proves that the United States never acquired the Hawaiian Islands, lacks jurisdiction and occupies Hawaii' quite logical;
13) They are applicable, with certain exceptions, under a state of "occupation,"
14) Moreover, they are the primary legal basis for proving illegal "occupation,"
15) And as in Boumediene, they must be applied - if they enhance, and do not degrade the rights of the occupied population.
16) The goal of Na'i Aupuni was to effect a "regime" change in Hawaii--which is contrary to the obligations of the occupant under international law;
17) It is thus appropriate for the Supreme Court to apply both the law of occupation as a part of international law, and the United States own rules as to occupation, as set forth by the United States Army, to nullify, or in this case, enjoin, until the matter is heard, the "regime change" consisting of an election to be followed by a convention,
18) For the purpose of creating a federally recognized Indian tribe of the people of Hawaii
19) Mr. Conklin's error is his assumption that since I argue the United States never acquired the Hawaiian Islands that the United States and State of Hawaii have absolutely no power or obligation to apply United States or State law to the Hawaiian Islands, even if such an application would partially, or completely, cure an unlawful and wrongful occupation.
20) He is wrong on two counts---under the law of occupation U.S. law applies, subject to exceptions and under its own law, the United States cannot prove it has de jure jurisdiction over Hawaii.
20. Mr. Conklin, your style, sarcasm, and unnecessary attacks render responding to you a necessary a matter of honor. You use personal ridicule to make your points. Such a style nullifies all possibilities of a scholarly, good faith exchange."