Rwanda drags UK to arbitration over £100m rift in scrapped migrant deal

Rwanda has taken Britain to international arbitration, insisting it is still owed 100 million pounds ($134 million) after a refugee resettlement deal was abruptly abandoned when Prime Minister Keir Starmer took office in 2024.

The original agreement, signed in 2022 under former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, aimed to transfer migrants arriving in the U.K. via boats or stowaway routes to Rwanda. The deal included financial support to help cover the East African country’s costs in hosting and processing these migrants.

Rwanda said it honored its part of the bargain. At a hearing Wednesday at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, Justice Minister and Attorney General Emmanuel Ugirashebuja outlined the country’s preparations, saying it had “prepared reception facilities for the incoming refugees and incurred significant costs in doing so,” while also setting up an asylum appeals chamber and necessary ministerial and administrative structures.

But Starmer’s administration scrapped the scheme immediately. Ugirashebuja said, “the new prime minister declared the Rwanda scheme to be dead and buried on his first full day in office. The United Kingdom did not do Rwanda the courtesy of informing it in advance. Instead, Rwanda was left to read about these developments in the media.”

The United Kingdom is pushing back, asking the tribunal to reject Rwanda’s claim. The British government argues that the two countries reached an understanding in November 2024 in which Rwanda agreed to forgo the payments.

Rwanda disputes this. Ugirashebuja told the panel that the U.K. “sought to walk away from its legal obligations.”

Legal experts say the outcome may hinge on whether the alleged November 2024 agreement can be proven. “A lot of the arbitration is going to turn around on the proof of that agreement,” said Joelle Grogan, visiting senior research fellow at UCD Sutherland School of Law in Dublin in an AP report.

The arbitration process is expected to take months, with no immediate resolution after this week’s hearings.

The policy had already faced strong criticism before being scrapped. Yvette Cooper, home secretary at the time, described it as the “most shocking waste of taxpayer money I have ever seen.” She estimated the plan cost roughly 700 million pounds, factoring in payments to Rwanda, grounded charter flights, and salaries for more than a thousand civil servants assigned to the project.

Under the original deal, migrants would have been sent to Rwanda, where their asylum claims would be processed and, if approved, they could remain. Britain’s Supreme Court ruled the policy unlawful, stating Rwanda could not be considered a safe third country for asylum seekers.

Rwanda initiated arbitration in January, also claiming that the U.K. violated commitments to resettle vulnerable refugees from Rwanda as part of the broader agreement.

Rwanda drags UK to arbitration over £100m rift in scrapped migrant deal

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