An Egyptian judge on a three-member panel issued a dissenting opinion as the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) ruled that the United Kingdom does not have to pay Rwanda more than £100 million in compensation over the cancelled migrant relocation deal. ALSO READ: Rwanda challenges UK’s ‘common sense’ claim on unpaid MEDP funds The case, heard in March, concerned the Migration and Economic Development Partnership (MEDP), a bilateral agreement signed in 2024 to allow the UK to relocate some vulnerable refugees to Rwanda, although several key parts of the arrangement were never fully implemented. Lodging the arbitration proceedings earlier this year, Rwanda maintained that the UK had outstanding financial obligations worth millions of pounds under the agreement, which it did not fulfil. In addition, Rwanda's legal team further argued that the new UK government, which took office last year, declared the deal “dead and buried” without formally triggering the treaty’s termination procedures. In a 76-page ruling dated May 15 and announced on Monday, the three-judge panel concluded that diplomatic exchanges between the two countries after the UK cancelled the scheme amounted to a mutual understanding that certain payments would not be made. The disputed payments included two instalments of 50 million pounds each, which Rwanda said were due in April 2025 and April this year. ALSO READ: Rwanda-UK dispute: Justice minister makes case for Rwanda as arbitration hearing opens However, Prof. Mohamed Abdel Wahab, an Egyptian member of the three-judge panel, issued a dissenting opinion. The other members of the panel were Judge Peter Tomka from Slovakia, and US judge Joan Donoghue. In his opinion, Wahab argued that the November 2024 Note Verbales between the two governments “did not constitute a binding amendment of the 2024 Finance Agreement.” The note verbales in question are part of the diplomatic exchanges held between Rwanda and the UK in 2024, at a time when the migration agreement faced challenges that hindered it from being implemented. In March this year, during the hearing of the case, Rwanda's legal team pointed out that the diplomatic exchanges in question did not constitute a legally binding termination of the agreement. In one of the hearing sessions at the PCA, Rwanda challenged the UK’s argument that it was “a matter of simple common sense” that further payments under the MEDP would not fall, either through termination or some other “arrangement.” “With respect, this is not common sense at all,” argued Guglielmo Verdirame, one of the lawyers on Rwanda’s legal team. “The real common sense 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,” he explained. ALSO READ: Rwanda, UK hail ‘bold’ migration deal In his dissenting opinion, Prof. Mohamed Abdel Wahab also questioned the view that the November 2024 Notes Verbales amounted to a binding change to the finance agreement. He explained that this conclusion conflates evidence of Rwanda’s political willingness to entertain an agreement with evidence of its juridical consent to be bound. “I consider that this distinction lies at the very heart of the factual and legal matrix of the dispute and the law of treaties,” he wrote. He also said the majority’s reliance on Rwanda’s later use of the word “rescind” to support the idea that the Notes were binding created a circular argument. “One cannot employ the same instrument both as the proof and as the thing to be proven,” he said. He added that while he agrees that under international law, agreements through the exchange of diplomatic notes are indeed a possibility, “what is decisive is whether the November 2024 Notes Verbales sufficiently evidence the parties’ express and unequivocal consent to be bound along the lines invoked by the United Kingdom.” Rwanda government reacts: In reaction to the ruling, government Spokesperson Yolande Makolo wrote via X, that while Rwanda respects the tribunal’s award and considers the matter concluded, “we note that the dissenting and separate opinion by Professor Mohamed Abdel Wahab shows that the issues before the Tribunal were complex and open to different legal conclusions.” Among the complex issues, she pointed out that the November 2024 exchanges relied on by the UK did not validly change the financial arrangements between the two countries. “Rwanda will continue to work constructively with international partners, guided by international norms and mutually beneficial cooperation,” she wrote.
