Britain and Rwanda inked a new pact on Tuesday in an attempt to resurrect London’s contentious proposal to transfer migrants to the East African country.
Rwandan Foreign Minister Vincent Biruta and British Interior Minister James Cleverly signed the deal in Kigali to resurrect London’s stalled bid to send migrants to Rwanda after the UK Supreme Court ruled that an earlier arrangement was illegal.
The judges agreed with a lower court finding that the policy was incompatible with Britain’s international commitments since Kigali may force people to return to countries where they would fear persecution.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak vowed to press on with the disputed project by winning the new treaty, promising to “address concerns” voiced by the Supreme Court’s verdict last month.
“There is a lot of desire to continue to improve the process. The UK and Rwanda are working on this because it is important,” Cleverly said at a joint press briefing in Kigali.
“Rwanda is very committed to this partnership and that is why we worked with the UK government to address the concerns raised by the Supreme Court”, Biruta added.
“We do not have plans to withdraw from this partnership.”
Legal challenges
Alain Mukuralinda, deputy spokesman for Rwanda’s government, said the two countries would “set up a joint tribunal with both Rwandan and UK judges in Kigali… to make sure that none of the immigrants sent to Rwanda is deported to their country.”
“This tribunal will have to be approved and voted (on) by parliaments from both countries,” he added.
More information about the new deal was not available, but British media sources suggested it would contain Rwanda’s pledges about the treatment of asylum seekers and other migrants sent there.
Sunak’s attempts to enact “emergency legislation” in parliament to identify Rwanda as a safe nation in order to terminate the “merry-go-round” of legal challenges were derailed by the UK Supreme Court judgment last month.
“I’m fed up with our Rwanda policy being blocked,” Sunak wrote in The Sun tabloid Tuesday.
“I’ve got the government working on emergency laws to end the merry-go-round so that we can fix this problem once and for all — and stop the boats.”
A UK-Rwanda migration “partnership” struck in April last year called for transferring to Kigali anyone who had made “dangerous or illegal journeys” to Britain on tiny boats from Europe or disguised in lorries, according to London.
‘Rwanda is a safe country’
The first deportees were on board an aircraft about to go there in June 2022 when a last-minute European Court of Human Rights injunction halted any deportations, provoking additional legal challenges.
Activists have also criticized the idea, with Human Rights Watch’s UK director, Yasmine Ahmed, urging the British government on Tuesday to “open its eyes to Rwanda’s track record of human rights violations, including against refugees and asylum seekers.”
Since the 1994 genocide, Rwanda has been de facto dominated by Paul Kagame, and the veteran president is aiming to extend his iron-fisted control in elections next year after winning nearly 99 percent of the vote in 2017.
Britain’s government thinks the bilateral plan is critical to deterring “illegal” immigration over the Channel from France on inflatable vessels – an emotive issue that is expected to dominate the upcoming general election.
roughly 30,000 people have made the risky trek this year, down from roughly 46,000 in 2022, but still well short of Sunak’s pledge to “stop the boats.”
“We are clear that Rwanda is a safe country, and we are working at pace to move forward with this partnership to stop the boats and save lives,” Cleverly said in a statement ahead of the visit.
“The Supreme Court recognised that changes may be delivered in future to address the conclusions they reached — and that is what we have set out to do together, with this new, internationally recognised treaty agreement.”