Rwanda takes UK to court seeking £100 million over failed migrant deal
Rwanda is seeking more than £100 million it says the United Kingdom still owes from a scrapped 2022 deal to deport migrants, in a case that opened on Wednesday at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.
Representing Rwanda, Justice Minister Emmanuel Ugirashebuja said his country “regretted” having to drag the UK to the court – set up in 1899 to settle contractual disputes between countries – to recover “the substantial sums of money of which Rwanda has been deprived”.
“However, the United Kingdom’s intransigence has left Rwanda with no other choice to vindicate its rights,” Ugirashebuja told the three-judge panel.
The case comes amid further tensions between the two nations after the UK Government slashed aid to Rwanda, accusing it of supporting M23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Former UK prime minister Boris Johnson signed a deal with Kigali in 2022 to send migrants arriving in the UK via “dangerous or illegal journeys” in small boats or lorries to Rwanda.
But the scheme hit legal and political obstacles from the start, with the UK Supreme Court eventually ruling it was illegal.
On current UK leader Keir Starmer’s first full day in office in July 2024, he declared the plan “dead and buried” and dismissed it as a “gimmick”.
Then-home secretary Yvette Cooper called it “the most shocking waste of taxpayers’ money I have ever seen”.
In the two years before the scheme was scrapped, just four people were actually sent from the UK to Rwanda, according to the current UK Government, and all went voluntarily.
According to the UK Government website, around £290 million (€336m) has already been paid to Rwanda, but Kigali argued in its pre-hearing submissions to the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) that two annual payments of £50m (€58m) were still outstanding.
The UK’s termination of the deal “does not change the UK’s obligation to pay any amount that was already due and payable,” Rwanda said in its 37-page case.
