Rwanda’s legal team has challenged the United Kingdom’s argument that it was "a matter of simple common sense” that further payments under the Migration and Economic Development Partnership (MEDP) would not fall, either through termination or some other "arrangement.”

Since Wednesday, March 18, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague, Netherlands, has been hearing arbitration proceedings initiated by Rwanda against the UK over the MEDP, a bilateral treaty signed in 2024. Rwanda accuses the UK of failing to fulfil several commitments under the agreement.

The partnership was intended to establish arrangements under which the UK would resettle some of its vulnerable refugees in Rwanda, although key aspects of its implementation were never realised.

In the case, Rwanda argues that the UK failed to honour financial obligations worth millions of pounds. Rwanda points out that the UK’s new government that took over last year, declared the agreement "dead and buried” without formally invoking the treaty’s termination provisions.

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Despite the UK’s declaration, Rwanda argues that the agreement remained legally in force, meaning several financial commitments were still due. These included a payment of £50 million in April 2025 and a potential additional payment in April 2026, neither of which has been made.

Presenting its submissions on Thursday, March 19, the UK legal team argued that it was a matter of "simple common sense” that either through termination or "some other agreement,” the further payments were not going "to be falling due.”

The UK team includes Tamsin Stubbing, Deputy Director for Resettlement and International Strategy at the Home Office; Daniel Hobbs, Director General for Migration and Borders; and lawyers Ben Juratowitch, Naomi Hart, and Alma Mozetič.

However, responding to the UK’s argument, Guglielmo Verdirame, one of the lawyers on Rwanda’s legal team, said the UK’s position suggests that if a country is required to make a payment under an agreement but also has a unilateral right of termination – which it chooses not to use – then it somehow must have achieved the same result through another route.

"With respect, this is not common sense at all,” he argued.

"The real commonsense account of what happened in this case is different, and indeed it is not that complicated,” he added, noting that Rwanda and the United Kingdom entered into a binding partnership, and each party had a right of unilateral termination subject to a three-month notice period.

"A few weeks into the binding partnership, the United Kingdom decided that the partnership no longer suited its interests. But instead of terminating the treaty, it engaged in lengthy discussions with Rwanda to seek to agree a binding amendment of the agreement. Rwanda could not have stopped the United Kingdom from terminating the treaty, but it was not obliged to agree to any amendment with binding effect. In the end, Rwanda did not agree to any such amendment, and we say the United Kingdom would have been fully aware of it,” he explained.

On why the UK did not formally terminate the agreement, Verdirame said the likely reason was political calculation.

"That's the assessment that they made, and it was their assessment,” he noted.

"British ministers did not want a short stand-alone bill just dealing with the termination of the agreement, which could have been done very simply and very expeditiously. What they wanted instead was to deal with termination as part of a much larger piece of legislation on immigration,” he added.

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He further argued that avoiding a stand-alone termination bill helped the government sidestep criticism.

"It is a well-known fact that immigration is perhaps the dominant theme in the politics of some Western countries, and no politician these days wishes to be portrayed as soft on immigration,” he noted.

Ugirashebuja presents final submissions

Delivering Rwanda’s final submissions, Justice Minister and Attorney General Emmanuel Ugirashebuja requested the tribunal to declare that the £50 million payment for year two remains due and payable under the agreement.

He also asked the tribunal to find that the UK breached its obligations by failing to make that payment, and to declare that the UK is required to pay a further £50 million for year three of the agreement.

In addition, he urged the tribunal to grant any other appropriate relief, including an order for the parties to negotiate compensation modalities.