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Last updated · JUNE 20, 2026

Comparison

Compare the groups.

The definitive side-by-side analysis of every active Hawaiian sovereignty organization — credibility scores, international recognition, legal standing, criminal records, and a verdict rooted in the international-law standards each group invokes.

Visual analysis

Four views of the record.

01 — Credibility

Overall credibility score, all ten groups

02 — Records

Felony convictions vs clean leadership

03 — Diplomacy

International engagement — top 4 groups

04 — Geography

Diplomatic locations on record

Honolulu, Hawaiʻi — All groups — home baseTahiti / French Polynesia — Atooi (2010 · 2017 · 2025)Canada — Atooi (2012)Rapa Nui / Easter Island — Atooi (2015)The Hague, Netherlands — Hawaiian Kingdom Gov · Larsen (1999)Geneva, Switzerland — Ka Lāhui — UN WGIP (1993–2000)New York, USA — Multiple groups — UN submissionsVatican City — Atooi — diplomatic visitAotearoa / New Zealand — Atooi — Pacific relations
  • Home base (Honolulu)
  • Atooi diplomatic engagements
  • UN engagements
  • International court engagements
  • Honolulu, Hawaiʻi — All groups — home base
  • Tahiti / French Polynesia — Atooi (2010 · 2017 · 2025)
  • Canada — Atooi (2012)
  • Rapa Nui / Easter Island — Atooi (2015)
  • The Hague, Netherlands — Hawaiian Kingdom Gov · Larsen (1999)
  • Geneva, Switzerland — Ka Lāhui — UN WGIP (1993–2000)
  • New York, USA — Multiple groups — UN submissions
  • Vatican City — Atooi — diplomatic visit
  • Aotearoa / New Zealand — Atooi — Pacific relations
Master scorecard

All nine groups, ranked.

Click any column header to sort. Tap a group name to open its full profile.

LeaderFelonyIntl AgreementsUN Engagement
Polynesian Kingdom of AtooiAliʻi Nui Aleka Aipoalani9/109910NoYesYes
Nation of HawaiʻiDennis "Bumpy" Kanahele6/10454Yes (pardoned)NoNo
Office of Hawaiian AffairsElected Board6/10287NoNoNo
Hawaiian Kingdom GovernmentDr. Keanu Sai5/10553YesNoIndirect
Lawful Hawaiian GovernmentHenry Noa4/10137NoNoNo
Naʻi AupuniBoard of Directors3/10139NoNoNo
Crown of HawaiiOwana Salazar3/10122YesNoNo
Kamehameha CouncilCouncil of Aliʻi3/10125MixedNoNo
Akahi NuiJames Akahi2/10118NoNoNo
Visualization

The four metrics, ranked.

01

Overall credibility

02

International recognition

03

Legal standing

04

Clean record

Criminal records

Leadership records, side by side.

LeaderGroupStatusDetail
Aliʻi Nui Aleka AipoalaniPolynesian Kingdom of AtooiCleanArrests in connection with sovereignty activity; never charged, never convicted.
Dennis "Bumpy" KanaheleNation of HawaiʻiFelony · Pardoned1984 assault; 1987 terroristic threatening; 1997 plea to federal misdemeanor; full gubernatorial pardon (2002).
Dr. Keanu SaiHawaiian Kingdom GovernmentFelony · No pardon1999 conviction for attempted first-degree theft tied to Perfect Title Company; 5 years probation (2000).
Henry NoaLawful Hawaiian GovernmentNo felony2006 Kahoʻolawe petty-misdemeanor trespass; vacated by Hawaiʻi Supreme Court on a procedural defect, ultimately dismissed.
Owana SalazarCrown of HawaiiFelonyPrior felony record on file; no convictions tied to legitimate governance work.
Office of Hawaiian AffairsOHA (state agency)N/A — state agencySubject to standard state audit and oversight; no individual leadership convictions of record.
International recognition

Only one group has put pins on the map.

Of all nine organizations, only the Polynesian Kingdom of Atooi has a documented record of sustained external diplomacy. Every pin below corresponds to a treaty, mission, or official communication on file.

  • Tahiti

    2011 · 2017 · 2025 missions

  • Rapa Nui

    Pacific recognition network

  • New Zealand

    Union of Pacific Nations

  • Canada

    2012 Indigenous nations agreement

  • United Nations · NYC

    2020 letter to Sec-Gen Guterres

  • Kauaʻi · PKOA seat

    Polynesian Kingdom of Atooi

International law framework

The international legal framework for Hawaiian sovereignty.

The treaties, conventions, court decisions, and legal principles that define the Hawaiian Kingdom question under international law — presented without political bias.

  1. 01Montevideo Convention · 1933

    The four requirements for statehood.

    Article 1 codifies the customary international-law test for statehood: a permanent population, a defined territory, an effective government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. By every contemporary account, the Hawaiian Kingdom met all four at the moment of the 1893 overthrow.

  2. 02Vienna Convention on Treaties · 1969

    Coerced treaties are void.

    Article 52 voids any treaty procured by the threat or use of force in violation of the UN Charter. The 1897 annexation treaty failed in the U.S. Senate; the 1898 Newlands Resolution was a domestic act passed while U.S. military forces were stationed in Hawaiian territory.

  3. 03State Continuity

    States do not simply disappear.

    Under continuity doctrine, a state's international personality persists through occupation or government-in-exile until lawfully extinguished by voluntary merger, treaty of dissolution, or universal recognition of extinction — none of which is documented for the Hawaiian Kingdom.

  4. 04Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom · PCA 1999-01

    The Hague case.

    The Permanent Court of Arbitration accepted Larsen for arbitration in 1999 and seated a tribunal with the Hawaiian Kingdom as a named party. The tribunal declined to rule on the merits because the U.S. — an indispensable third party — refused to consent.

  5. 05UNDRIP · 2007

    The right to self-determination.

    UNDRIP affirms indigenous peoples' right to self-determination and the free pursuit of political status. The United States endorsed UNDRIP in 2010. Endorsement is a political commitment short of ratification — non-binding, but it sets the normative benchmark.

  6. 06Equity

    The 'clean hands' doctrine.

    A party seeking equitable remedies in international law must not itself have engaged in serious wrongdoing connected to the matter at issue. Leadership criminal records — particularly for financial fraud — are therefore part of the evidentiary file, not a side issue.

Section 01

The Montevideo Convention (1933) — Article 1.

"The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states."
— Convention on Rights and Duties of States, Montevideo, December 26, 1933
CriterionMet?Evidence at time of overthrow
Permanent populationYESNative Hawaiian population existed continuously; 19th-century census records of ~40,000 Native Hawaiians plus naturalized subjects.
Defined territoryYESThe Hawaiian archipelago — 6,423 square miles of land area across eight main islands, with continuously recognised maritime boundaries.
GovernmentYESConstitutional monarchy with legislature, judiciary, and executive. Ratified constitutions in 1840, 1864, and 1887.
Capacity to enter relationsYESMore than 20 bilateral treaty partners at the time of the overthrow — U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Japan, Russia, and others.

Conclusion

The Hawaiian Kingdom met all four Montevideo criteria at the time of the 1893 overthrow. This is not a political claim — it is a statement of historical fact documented in U.S. State Department records and the Library of Congress treaty archive.

Section 02

The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969) — Article 52.

"A treaty is void if its conclusion has been procured by the threat or use of force in violation of the principles of international law embodied in the Charter of the United Nations."
— Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, art. 52, May 23, 1969

The 1897 annexation treaty failed to secure the two-thirds Senate vote required by the U.S. Constitution. The 1898 Newlands Resolution that followed was not a treaty at all — it was a domestic joint resolution of Congress, passed by simple majority while U.S. military forces were stationed in Hawaiian territory during the Spanish–American War.

Under Article 52, any international instrument procured by the threat or use of force is void. Even applying the principle retroactively (Article 52 codifies pre-existing customary international law), no valid international instrument ever transferred Hawaiian sovereignty from the Kingdom to the United States.

Note: The United States is not a party to the Vienna Convention. However, the U.S. State Department has long recognized that the Convention's core provisions codify customary international law that binds non-parties equally.

Section 03

The state continuity doctrine.

Under customary international law, a state does not cease to exist merely because its government is overthrown by foreign force. The state's international personality persists through occupation, government-in-exile, or prolonged absence of effective control, and is extinguished only by lawful means: voluntary merger, dissolution by treaty, or universal recognition of extinction.

Historical precedents

  • The Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were occupied by the USSR from 1940 to 1991. Most Western states never recognised their legal extinction; their pre-occupation diplomatic missions continued in functional form, and independence was restored in 1991 on the legal theory that the states had continuously existed throughout the occupation.
  • Kuwait — During the 1990–1991 Iraqi occupation, Kuwait's international legal personality persisted; UN Security Council Resolution 662 expressly declared the annexation null and void.

Applied to Hawaiʻi: this continuity argument is the legal foundation of Dr. Keanu Sai's Hawaiian Kingdom Government and underlies PKOA's diplomatic framework. The proposition is that the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist as a state under prolonged belligerent occupation.

Section 04

Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom — PCA Case No. 1999-01.

In 1999, Lance Paul Larsen, a Hawaiian national, filed a claim against the Hawaiian Kingdom at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. Larsen alleged that the Kingdom had failed to protect him from unlawful imposition of U.S. domestic law within Hawaiian territory.

The PCA accepted the case for arbitration, assembled a three-member tribunal, and named the Hawaiian Kingdom as a respondent party. Proceedings ran from 1999 through 2001.

The tribunal ultimately declined to rule on the merits, citing the absence of an indispensable third party: the United States, whose interests were inextricably involved, had not consented to the arbitration and could not be joined.

Significance

Acceptance was administrative, not a finding on sovereignty. But Larsen remains the only international judicial body ever to have accepted the Hawaiian Kingdom as a named party and seated a tribunal — a procedural fact international-law commentators continue to weigh.

Section 05

UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007).

Article 3. 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.
Article 4. Indigenous peoples, in exercising their right to self-determination, have the right to autonomy or self-government in matters relating to their internal and local affairs, as well as ways and means for financing their autonomous functions.
Article 5. Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinct political, legal, economic, social and cultural institutions, while retaining their right to participate fully, if they so choose, in the political, economic, social and cultural life of the State.

The United States endorsed UNDRIP on December 16, 2010. Endorsement is a political commitment short of treaty ratification: the U.S. has not incorporated UNDRIP into domestic law and treats it as aspirational rather than directly enforceable. In the Hawaiian context, UNDRIP supplies the normative standard against which any restoration claim is measured — it does not, by itself, restore Hawaiian sovereignty.

Section 06

The clean hands doctrine.

In international equity, a party seeking legal remedies must itself have conducted its own affairs lawfully — the "clean hands" requirement. International tribunals from the International Court of Justice to ad hoc arbitral panels have routinely weighed claimant conduct when adjudicating sovereignty and territorial disputes.

Applied to Hawaiian sovereignty groups: a group whose leadership carries a documented criminal record — particularly for offenses involving fraud, dishonesty, or the misuse of Kingdom-law instruments — faces credibility obstacles in international forums regardless of the legal merits of its underlying claims.

This is the principled reason that leadership criminal records appear in this archive alongside legal-framework analysis. Under the equitable standards that every group ultimately invokes, leadership conduct is part of the evidentiary file — not a separate or ad hominem consideration.

Section 07

Key U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

  1. Rice v. Cayetano (2000)

    528 U.S. 495 (2000)

    HoldingOHA's Hawaiian-only voting restriction held unconstitutional under the 15th Amendment.

    ImpactSharply limits the State of Hawaiʻi's ability to administer race-restricted Hawaiian governance bodies — making federal-recognition pathways materially harder.

  2. Hawaii v. OHA (2009)

    556 U.S. 163 (2009)

    HoldingThe 1993 Apology Resolution creates no enforceable legal obligations and does not strip the State of Hawaiʻi of authority to alienate former Kingdom lands.

    ImpactForecloses domestic litigation strategies that rely on the Apology Resolution as a source of substantive rights.

  3. Akina v. Hawaii (2015)

    576 U.S. ___ (Dec. 2, 2015)

    HoldingSCOTUS injunction halted the Naʻi Aupuni delegate election while litigation proceeded, on equal-protection grounds.

    ImpactForced the Naʻi Aupuni convention to proceed only through an open-delegate model and chilled subsequent federal-recognition processes.

Section 08

How the credibility scores are calculated.

Every score in this archive is reproducible from the public record. The formulas below are the same ones applied to every group, without exception.

  1. International Score (0–10)

    2 pts per formal treaty agreement · 2 pts per UN engagement · 2 pts for any foreign-government recognition · 2 pts for international-court engagement · capped at 10.

  2. Legal Score (0–10)

    Based on documented legal standing, court-case outcomes, and use of recognized legal frameworks (Montevideo, Vienna Convention, continuity doctrine, UNDRIP).

  3. Clean Record Score (0–10)

    10 = no convictions · 7 = misdemeanor only · 4 = felony pardoned · 1 = active felony conviction · 0 = multiple felonies, no pardon.

  4. Overall Score

    Weighted average: International 40% · Legal 30% · Clean Record 30%.

The path forward

What path forward exists?

Under the same frameworks above, a legitimate restoration of Hawaiian sovereignty would proceed in three concrete steps:

  1. #01

    Formal petition to the United Nations.

    A direct submission to the UN General Assembly or Security Council — invoking decolonization and self-determination frameworks — placing the question of Hawaiian status on the international agenda.

  2. #02

    Recognition by a sufficient number of UN member states.

    Customary international law requires acts of recognition by sovereign states. A critical mass of bilateral recognitions, treaties, and diplomatic relations would establish Hawaiian statehood as a matter of practice.

  3. #03

    A negotiated settlement with the United States.

    Analogous to the Compacts of Free Association concluded with Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia — a bilateral instrument defining sovereign status, defense relations, and ongoing economic ties.

Conclusion

Under any honest reading of these frameworks, the group with the strongest foundation is the one with the most documented international relationships, the most credible legal standing, and the cleanest record of leadership conduct.

The verdict

Ranked under international law.

Each assessment applies the same evidentiary standards — Montevideo Convention statehood criteria, continuity-of-state doctrine, and the 'clean hands' principle — to the documented record of every group.

  1. #1

    Polynesian Kingdom of Atooi

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    9/10

    Under the Montevideo Convention's four-element test for statehood — defined territory, permanent population, government, and capacity to enter foreign relations — Atooi is the only contemporary Hawaiian sovereignty organization with a continuous, documented record across all four prongs.

    Its treaty with the Union of Pacific Nations (2010), the Canadian Indigenous nations agreement (2012), the recurring Tahiti missions, and the 2020 letter to the UN Secretary General are precisely the kind of external acts international tribunals look to as evidence of recognized international personality.

    Combined with a clean criminal record across 35+ years of leadership — directly relevant under the international 'clean hands' doctrine — Atooi presents the strongest legitimacy profile in the archive.

  2. #2

    Nation of Hawaiʻi

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    6/10

    Nation of Hawaiʻi is the only sovereignty organization with a formal land-use accommodation from the State of Hawaiʻi (Puʻuhonua o Waimānalo, 1994). That accommodation is not state recognition, but it is unique institutional standing.

    Its weakness under international standards is the criminal history of its founding leader: multiple convictions across three decades, ending in a full gubernatorial pardon in 2002. A pardon restores legal rights; under 'clean hands' analysis it does not erase the conduct.

    Verdict: a serious and durable grassroots movement, materially weakened — but not disqualified — by the leadership record.

  3. #3

    Office of Hawaiian Affairs

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    6/10

    OHA is the most institutionally powerful actor in the archive: a constitutionally established state agency with a trust portfolio exceeding $600M and a continuous litigation record at the highest U.S. courts.

    Under international law it cannot itself be a sovereign — it is an organ of the State of Hawaiʻi, which is in turn an organ of the United States. Rice v. Cayetano (2000) and Hawaii v. OHA (2009) both confirmed the limits of that domestic role.

    Verdict: indispensable to any federal-recognition pathway; structurally incapable of independent statehood.

  4. #4

    Hawaiian Kingdom Government

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    5/10

    Dr. Keanu Sai's continuity-of-state argument is the most academically rigorous case advanced by any group, and the Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom arbitration at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (1999–2001) is real, citable international procedural history.

    But the PCA did not rule on Hawaiian statehood, and Sai's 1999 conviction for attempted first-degree theft tied to the Perfect Title Company collapses the 'clean hands' argument any continuity-of-state claimant must rely on.

    Verdict: intellectually serious, evidentially compromised.

  5. #5

    Lawful Hawaiian Government

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    4/10

    The Reinstated Lawful Hawaiian Government has held representative sessions and produced proclamations for over twenty-five years. Henry Noa's only legal entanglement — a petty-misdemeanor trespass tied to a symbolic landing on Kahoʻolawe — was vacated on a procedural defect and ultimately dismissed.

    On the other side of the ledger, Hawaiʻi courts in Alexander & Baldwin v. Armitage (2018–2022) explicitly held that the organization has no legal existence recognized by the State.

    Verdict: clean leadership, durable activism, no external recognition.