Court Rejects Rwanda £100m Claim Against Britain Over Migrant Deal

An international court on Monday rejected a claim by Rwanda for Britain to pay more than £100 million ($135 million), it said London still owed from a scrapped deal to deport migrants.

Judges from the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague ruled that Britain was not liable for two years of outstanding costs from the scheme that was shelved in 2024.

In 2022, former UK prime minister Boris Johnson sealed a deal with Kigali to send to Rwanda migrants arriving in Britain via “dangerous or illegal journeys” in small boats or lorries.

But the scheme hit legal and political obstacles from the start, with the UK Supreme Court eventually ruling it illegal.

When Keir Starmer became British prime minister in July 2024, he declared the plan “dead and buried” on his first full day in office, dismissing it as a “gimmick”.

Then, the interior minister, Yvette Cooper, called it “the most shocking waste of taxpayers’ money I have ever seen”.

During the two years before the scheme was scrapped, only four people actually went to Rwanda, all voluntarily, according to the current UK government.

According to the UK government website, about £290 million has already been paid to Rwanda, but Kigali argued in its pre-hearing submissions to the PCA that two annual payments of £50m were still outstanding.

But the PCA, set up in 1899 to settle contractual disputes between nations, rejected by majority a £50m claim for one year and unanimously rejected the same amount for the second.

The two nations are already at loggerheads after Britain slashed aid to Rwanda, accusing it of supporting M23 rebels in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

AFP