Rwanda has launched an arbitration case against the United Kingdom, saying it is owed more than $130m under a cancelled asylum agreement.
In a filing with the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, the East African country says Britain breached the terms of a “migration partnership” signed in 2022.
Under the deal, the UK agreed to pay Rwanda to accept asylum seekers and migrants who arrived in Britain illegally.
The policy was introduced by a Conservative government but was scrapped by Prime Minister Keir Starmer after he took office in 2024.
Rwanda says it agreed to waive future payments if the treaty was ended and new financial terms were negotiated. But in its arbitration filing, Kigali says those talks never happened.
The claim also accuses Britain of breaking a promise to resettle vulnerable refugees with complex needs who were already being hosted in Rwanda.
Before it was abandoned, the plan faced multiple legal challenges. The UK Supreme Court ruled that Rwanda was not a safe country and said sending asylum seekers there would violate domestic and international law.
