How we got here — the process of elimination, and every citation.
We did not start at the conclusion. We started with facts the United States admitted, then knocked out every other explanation until one was left standing. Every source below is the colonizer's own instrument.
Start with what the United States admits, then cross out every candidate.
By its own hand — the 1952 World Court case and Public Law 84-856 (1956) — the United States admits it exercised extraterritorial jurisdiction over "subjects of the Emperor of Morocco." That is authority over territory and people. It had to run somewhere real: a world court does not decide an empty case, and a statute does not relinquish a power over nobody. So where?
- The French Zone of Morocco — ruled out. France administered it; the persons in the 1952 dispute there were United States citizens claiming a tax exemption the Court said had ended — not a population of the Emperor's subjects the United States governed.
- The Spanish Zone — ruled out. Spain administered it.
- The Tangier international zone — ruled out. Governed by an international commission.
- "Nowhere — it was symbolic" — ruled out. The Court did rule and Congress did legislate "over subjects of Morocco." The authority was real, so it had a real place.
- North America — left standing. The only "subjects of the Emperor of Morocco" the United States actually named, warned out of its towns, reclassified, and legislated over — the 1788 Massachusetts warning-out act, the 1956 statute, the found-here Moors petitioning as the Emperor's subjects — were living here.
France, as the Empire's protector, sued — and the Court ruled. There are only two ways that is possible.
Door A — the United States was within the Empire's reach. Then France, as the Empire of Morocco's protector (Treaty of Fez, 1912), had standing; the World Court had a real case; and the found-here "subjects of Morocco" are the Empire's nationals under a treaty still in force. The United States is inside the Empire of Morocco.
Door B — the colonial fiction, that the United States stood outside the Empire's reach. Suppose it were true. Then France had no standing and the Court had no case — yet the Court took one and ruled on the merits; and the United States' own statute would be claiming a jurisdiction "over subjects of Morocco" it has no treaty on earth to touch. The fiction collapses on the colonizer's own record — and even the denial lands on the claim: authority asserted over the Empire's people with no lawful basis, an ongoing wrong.
There is no third door. Either way, the United States is bound to the Empire of Morocco over these people. The bind is the trap built by the colonizer's own instruments.
The timeline — 1763 to 2026, one unbroken line.
Proven by the record; not yet adjudicated. Yet.
Every premise is a fact the United States admitted: the treaty in force (I.C.J. 1952; Treaties in Force 2026; H.Res. 251, 2025); United States nationals bound by the Empire's law with no fiscal immunity (I.C.J. 1952); France's standing as protector (Treaty of Fez, 1912); the 1956 statute claiming a jurisdiction never granted. The conclusion follows by elimination — nothing imported, nothing assumed.
The 1952 Court adjudicated only the narrow points. The whole conclusion — that the United States is inside the Empire of Morocco, and the found-here class are its nationals — is proven from the record and pleaded, awaiting a ruling. It is what the petitions now before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (P-1365-26) and the United Nations decolonization committee ask a court to declare.
Every citation, in full.
Treaty of Peace and Friendship, 1836 — 8 Stat. 484; TS 244-2; 9 Bevans 1286 (Art. 25 perpetuity clause).
Treaty of Fez, 1912 — French protectorate over the Empire of Morocco.
Rights of Nationals of the United States of America in Morocco (France v. United States), Judgment of 27 August 1952, I.C.J. Reports 1952.
Public Law 84-856 (1956) — purported relinquishment of a jurisdiction "over subjects of Morocco" never treaty-granted.
Treaty of Paris, 1763.
Petition of Abel Conder & Mahamut (South Carolina, 1753); Massachusetts Act of 1788.
Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1862 (the "Tangier difficulty").
U.S. Dept. of State, Treaties in Force (2026); H.Res. 251, 119th Congress (25 March 2025).
U.N. General Assembly Resolutions 1514 (XV) and 1541 (XV), 1960.