Ka Huli Ao continues to produce unique scholarship that incorporates history, culture, and present-day context to advance social justice for Native Hawaiians, Pacific and Indigenous Peoples, and all peoples.
Assistant Professor Uʻilani Tanigawa Lum and Ka Huli Ao Post-JD Legal Fellow Kaulu Luʻuwai published an article, Plantation Capitalism’s Legacy Produced the Maui Wildfires, in Yale Law School’s Law and Political Economy Project. The essay examines the historic and ongoing effects of plantation capitalism on Maui’s communities, especially as it led to the August 2023 wildfires. A disregard for Native Hawaiian ecological knowledge and Maui Komohana’s plantation history manufactured the conditions that led to the tragic fires that razed the historic town of Lahaina.
Professor Susan Serrano is authoring a forthcoming essay, Intersectional Imperial Legacies in the U.S. Territories, in the Yale Law Journal Forum, which explores the often obscured and particularized harms experienced by women and people who can become pregnant in the U.S. territories—harms often rooted in U.S. colonization and the territories’ political relationship with the United States.
Professor Kapuaʻala Sproat co-authored REFRAMING WAI AS WAIWAI: THE PUBLIC TRUST PARADIGM IN HAWAIʻI NEI with Mahina Tuteur. This chapter helps to lay a foundation for Professor Kamanamaikalani Beamer’s book WAIWAI: WATER AND THE FUTURE OF HAWAIʻI, which is in publication now with the University of Hawaiʻi Press. Professor Sproat’s chapter interrogates the role of Hawaiʻi’s public trust doctrine and Indigenous values in the restoration of fresh water resources and, ultimately, the very future of our archipelago.
Assistant Professor Derek Kauanoe’s forthcoming article, The Role of Human Rights in Advancing Justice for Native Hawaiians: Infusing Indigenous Human Rights with Kanaka Maoli Values, explores the fusion of Indigenous values and international human rights frameworks to address Native Hawaiian issues, particularly surrounding land justice and self-determination. It highlights the historical and legal contexts of Hawaiʻi’s Public Land Trust, emphasizing cultural integrity (moʻomeheu), land and natural resources (ʻāina), social determinants of health and well-being (mauli ola), and self-determination/self-governance (ea) as critical values for restorative justice. The discussion critiques Act 236 leases (authorizing the extension of 65-year public land leases up to an additional 40 years) as undermining these values and examines global human rights instruments and Indigenous legal paradigms to advocate for Native Hawaiian rights. By integrating these frameworks, the article provides a template for addressing historical injustices and shaping policies to enhance Native Hawaiian self-governance and well-being.
Assistant Professor Tanigawa Lum authored a forthcoming article, Ola ka Wai i ka Malu ʻUlu o Lele: A Collective Memory of Injustice in Maui Komohana as a Foundation for Restorative Justice and Recovery for Lahaina’s Wildfires. This article builds on recent scholarly inquiries into the impacts of plantation disaster capitalism in Hawai‘i while also situating it within a larger narrative of injustice in Maui Komohana. Assistant Professor Tanigawa Lum further integrates Kānaka Maoli perspectives—like moʻolelo, mele, and hula—as a key part of the emerging dominant narrative, a crucial roadmap for recovery in Maui Komohana, and as a tool for restorative justice in Hawaiʻi.
Assistant Professor Palau-McDonald authored Farrington v. Tokushige: Language and Power in Hawaiʻi, which will be published in Western Legal History (the journal of the Ninth Judicial Circuit Historical Society), as part of a symposium on the centennial of Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925).
Assistant Professor Palau-McDonald and Professor Richard Chen co-authored: Teaching Indigenous Perspectives in an Antiracist Law School Curriculum, which is forthcoming in the fourth volume of Building an Antiracist Law School, Legal Academy, and Legal Profession (Penn. St. Antiracist Dev. Inst.).
Post-JD Legal Fellow Kaulu Luʻuwai published an article in the American Bar Association’s Human Rights Magazine – Volume 50 titled, The Story of Why Lahaina Burned: A Nexus of Colonization, Plantation Capitalism, and Climate Impacts, which analyzes the combination of historical events and modern issues that primed the tragic Lahaina fires. The article also recognizes the need for Lahaina to be rebuilt in an environmentally sensible way that is founded on principles of Kānaka Maoli resource management practices and accounts for our new climate reality while centering restorative justice following over 150 years of colonization in this region.
Post-JD Legal Fellow Kaulu Luʻuwai authored a short article titled A Resounding Victory for Nā Wai ʻEhā, which was featured in the Office of Hawaiian Affairs’ monthly publication, Ka Wai Ola. The article discusses the recent Hawaiʻi Supreme Court decision, which unanimously held, among other things, that the Hawaiʻi Water Commission failed to justify not restoring additional stream flow to the “Four Great Waters” in light of the closure of Maui’s last sugar plantation.
Ka Huli Ao continues to work on updating the second, revised edition of NATIVE HAWAIIAN LAW: A TREATISE deploying a contextual inquiry framework grounded in the international human rights principle of self-determination for Indigenous Peoples. This approach supports the development of Kānaka Maoli and other Indigenous Peoples’ laws and movements for justice.