09-18-2015, 05:39 PM
In today's Civil Beat is a COMMUNITY VOICE article entitled:
Law Recognizes Native Hawaiians as Indigenous People With Special Rights
by Derek Kauanoe, who is a lecturer at the William S. Richardson School of Law and a Ph.D. student in political science at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
For those who contemplate the issues surrounding Hawaiian rights I highly recommend reading it in it's entirety here:
http://www.civilbeat.com/2015/09/law-rec...al-rights/
For me this was an eye opener in that it references a document I have yet to have heard about. Maybe it was discussed earlier in one of the TMT and Hawaiian sovereignty land use rights threads and I missed the opportunity to consider it. Never the less to me, today, it is an encouraging find. The document I am referring to is the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which can be read in it's entirety here:
http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/docu...IPS_en.pdf
and OMG this is a rich find. For all those (on PW) that have argued every side of this issue as if with authority here is an actual, in writing, agreed to by the worlds leaders, relevant finding on the very issues that so many here have argued over as if they themselves are the utmost authority on the subject, but rarely with any real documentation to back up their position. Here it is.
I think, as does Derek Kauanoe in his article, that Article 3 is extremely telling. It reads:
Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.
Now of course the first question is did the United States vote to ratify this document? And the answer is yes. And further does it apply to native Hawaiians specifically, and again the answer is yes. Derek Kauanoe summed it up as such:
President Obama included the Native Hawaiian people in his endorsement of the declaration. Native Hawaiians have a right to self-determination and with the declaration developing as an international legal norm, the United States is expected to provide processes for the exercise of Native Hawaiian self-determination.
and includes a link to the official Announcement of U.S. Support for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which can be read in it's entirety here:
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/184099.pdf
and includes this line specifically identifying the Hawaiian people as to be covered by the UN Declaration:
In addition to enhancing the self-determination of federally recognized tribes, the Obama Administration has supported the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, which provides a process for forming a Native Hawaiian governing entity that would be recognized by, and have a government-to-government relationship with, the United States.
Of course someone is going to say it's unconstitutional, and someone else with say the UN has no authority blah blah blah, as well as maybe I missed a long winded argument that happened months ago and all the flag waving Americans already 'proved' to everyone's satisfaction that the whole thing is a sham and to tell the truth I am so tire of all the arguing that it doesn't matter. Sheesh some will blame it all on me.. so right up front I will say I'm an idiot, completely ignorant of the facts, and yes it's all my fault, enough? But I thought maybe, just maybe, some will appreciate having their attention drawn to the above.
Law Recognizes Native Hawaiians as Indigenous People With Special Rights
by Derek Kauanoe, who is a lecturer at the William S. Richardson School of Law and a Ph.D. student in political science at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
For those who contemplate the issues surrounding Hawaiian rights I highly recommend reading it in it's entirety here:
http://www.civilbeat.com/2015/09/law-rec...al-rights/
For me this was an eye opener in that it references a document I have yet to have heard about. Maybe it was discussed earlier in one of the TMT and Hawaiian sovereignty land use rights threads and I missed the opportunity to consider it. Never the less to me, today, it is an encouraging find. The document I am referring to is the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which can be read in it's entirety here:
http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/docu...IPS_en.pdf
and OMG this is a rich find. For all those (on PW) that have argued every side of this issue as if with authority here is an actual, in writing, agreed to by the worlds leaders, relevant finding on the very issues that so many here have argued over as if they themselves are the utmost authority on the subject, but rarely with any real documentation to back up their position. Here it is.
I think, as does Derek Kauanoe in his article, that Article 3 is extremely telling. It reads:
Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.
Now of course the first question is did the United States vote to ratify this document? And the answer is yes. And further does it apply to native Hawaiians specifically, and again the answer is yes. Derek Kauanoe summed it up as such:
President Obama included the Native Hawaiian people in his endorsement of the declaration. Native Hawaiians have a right to self-determination and with the declaration developing as an international legal norm, the United States is expected to provide processes for the exercise of Native Hawaiian self-determination.
and includes a link to the official Announcement of U.S. Support for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which can be read in it's entirety here:
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/184099.pdf
and includes this line specifically identifying the Hawaiian people as to be covered by the UN Declaration:
In addition to enhancing the self-determination of federally recognized tribes, the Obama Administration has supported the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, which provides a process for forming a Native Hawaiian governing entity that would be recognized by, and have a government-to-government relationship with, the United States.
Of course someone is going to say it's unconstitutional, and someone else with say the UN has no authority blah blah blah, as well as maybe I missed a long winded argument that happened months ago and all the flag waving Americans already 'proved' to everyone's satisfaction that the whole thing is a sham and to tell the truth I am so tire of all the arguing that it doesn't matter. Sheesh some will blame it all on me.. so right up front I will say I'm an idiot, completely ignorant of the facts, and yes it's all my fault, enough? But I thought maybe, just maybe, some will appreciate having their attention drawn to the above.