A recent UK Parliamentary report released on Monday scrutinized the nation’s Safety of Rwanda Bill, finding that the UK’s strategies to send asylum borrowers to Rwanda were fundamentally incompatible with human rights. The report significantly pointed out that the UK’s interventions to dispatch illegal migrants infringes on the “non-refoulement” principle, as outlined in Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prevents returning asylum seekers to the same country they are fleeing from.
The contentious UK-Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership (MEDP), established in April 2022, laid out a 5-year partnership with Rwanda. The partnership incorporated plans to send UK asylum seekers for processing in Rwanda, where successful applicants would be settled. This partnership was initiated by the Conservative Party Prime Minister Rishi Sunuk in order to curb the surge of irregular migrants coming via the English Channel.
Additionally, it is estimated that the cost to the UK for processing asylum seekers in Rwanda rather than domestically would amount to 63,000 pounds. Following legal provocations by asylum seekers concerning safety issues in Rwanda, the UK Supreme Court ruled in November 2023 that this plan violated the UK’s Human Rights Act 1998, which upholds obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights.
In retaliation, the UK’s House of Commons passed the Safety of Rwanda Bill in January, which sets to reverse the Supreme Court’s verdict, declaring Rwanda a country safe for asylum seekers, which could not be judicially reviewed.
The report states:
[T]he MEDP could be seen as an outsourcing of the UK’s own obligations under the Refugee Convention to another country … removing asylum seekers to another state where they face a real risk of human rights abuses, or of being sent on to a dangerous third country as a result of an inadequate asylum system, is inconsistent with the UK’s human rights obligations.
Although the Government insists that Rwanda is a safe state, the report concluded, after hearing from various entities, including the UNHCR, that Rwanda’s safety can’t be taken for granted due to insufficient evidence. As a result, this parliamentary report deferred to the previous Supreme Court case that classified Rwanda as unsafe.
The Safety of Rwanda Bill is currently under examination in the House of Lords. Potential amendments may be made before it is passed, paving the way for the first asylum seekers to be sent to Rwanda for processing.