International Court Rejects Rwanda’s £100m Claim Against UK Over Scrapped Migrant Deal

The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague has dismissed Rwanda’s demand that Britain pay more than £100 million in alleged outstanding costs from the now-defunct migrant deportation agreement.

In its ruling on Monday, the tribunal held that the UK was not liable for two years of payments under the scheme, which was declared unlawful by the UK Supreme Court and formally abandoned in 2024. The decision comes amid strained relations between both nations following Britain’s aid cuts and accusations of Rwanda’s support for M23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

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).