By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Rwanda has taken legal actions against the United Kingdom’s refusal to disburse payments under the now-scrapped, controversial agreement for Kigali to receive deported asylum seekers, a Rwandan official and UK media reports say.
Rwanda launched arbitral proceedings against the UK through the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration on Tuesday.
It is seeking 50 million pounds ($68.8m) in compensation after the UK failed to formally terminate the controversial agreement about two years ago, The Telegraph newspaper reported.
“Rwanda regrets that it has been necessary to pursue these claims in arbitration, but faced with the United Kingdom’s intransigence on these issues, it has been left with no other choice,” Michael Butera, chief technical adviser to the Ministers of Justice told reporters.
Butera added that Kigali had sought diplomatic engagement before resorting to legal action.
The programme to remove to East Africa some people who had arrived in the UK via small boats was agreed upon in a treaty between London and Kilgali. It was intended as a deterrent for those wanting to come to the UK in the same manner.
However, just four volunteers arrived in Rwanda under the deal.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer scrapped the deal brokered by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government in 2022. Upon assumption of office in 2024, Starmer declared that the deal was “dead and buried”.
UK had already paid Kigali 240 million pounds ($330.9m) before the agreement was abandoned, with a further 50 million pounds ($68.9m) due in April.
Starmer’s official spokesman told reporters on Tuesday, “We will robustly defend our position to protect British taxpayers.”
Last year, the UK suspended most financial aid to Rwanda for backing the M23 group’s offensive in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.Kigali labelled the move “punitive”.
The transfer deal faced a string of legal challenges, culminating in a November 2023 ruling by the UK Supreme Court that it was illegal under international law.
Rwanda began the interstate arbitration proceedings under the asylum partnership agreement in November, according to the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s website, which lists the case status as pending.
