<p><italic>Restoring the Kingdom of Hawaii</italic> is a powerful book on one of the most controversial matters of international law in today's world: ‘self-determination’ – the right of all peoples to govern themselves by themselves, without alien interference, so as to freely determine their political status and economic, social and cultural development. Despite the clear definition provided for ‘self-determination’ in seminal international law instruments adopted many decades ago, and the higher rank that ‘self-determination’ enjoys now in the hierarchy of legal norms (as <italic>jus cogens</italic>), it is still a controversial matter. Some of the biggest controversies in the scholarship concern the implementation of self-determination, and the fact that this concept always appeals to states’ sensibility vis-à-vis territorial integrity. So ‘who is the subject’, or ‘who is entitled’ to the right of self-determination and ‘how should it be exercised’ – it remains a problematic question. Professor Boyle pleads magistrally in this book the case for the restoration of the Hawaiian Kingdom from the perspective of the international law right of self-determination. His analysis reveals the movements of the Kanaka Maoli People, Native Hawaiians (who few may know or remember nowadays as people existing and living once independently in the remote Pacific Ocean's Hawaiian Islands), towards restoring ‘the “independence” of that former Sovereign Kanaka Maoli Nation State that remained in existence’(p. 88) and the obstacles they face in achieving it.</p>
<p>The book is mainly based on Professor Boyle's extensive work done in his capacity as legal advisor for the Kanaka Maoli People, starting in 1993, and it presents the successive steps he made towards achieving the restoration of this People's kingdom. The author has the art of exposing in this book an effective strategy of self-determination for the Native Hawaiians in accordance with the rules and principles of international law, while developing an inspiring model of self-determination under international law for other peoples around the world, under colonial domination, to pursue that path. Through a highly elaborated analysis in the light of international law, Professor Boyle concisely captures the ways in which Hawaii can accomplish its restoration as the independent Nation State it had been before 1893 when the United States of America invaded and destroyed it. He relies for this purpose on his extensive knowledge and experience as litigator of international law crimes before domestic and international courts (for example on ‘genocide’, before the ICJ for the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina during Yugoslavia's genocidal war against Bosnians; on ‘self-determination’, working with indigenous peoples and oppressed nations in the United States and all over the world). In principle, the author shows in this book what are the legal, human rights, economic and political implications of the Kingdom of Hawaii's illegal annexation by the USA as its 50th federal state which occurred in 1893. He provides to this purpose important historical background, clear evidence and legal arguments that the USA ‘never lawfully acquired the Hawai'ian Kingdom’ (p. 125).</p>
<p>In the introductory part, the author offers a background to his acquaintance with the problem of the Kanaka Maoli People under US colonial domination and the formation of his views on the...</p>
