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The NBA's Other Human Rights Quagmire
The league must rethink its commercial partnership with Rwanda, whose army and senior officials the US government recently sanctioned for backing a deadly armed group that is committing “horrific human rights abuses.”
May 10, 2026
As an iconic sports league with a deep historic commitment to social justice, two of the National Basketball Association’s commercial branding relationships contradict the league’s values.
Questions are being raised about the branding deal the NBA struck with the United Arab Emirates, ignoring the killer drones and other support it is sending to a militia which the United Nations found to be committing genocide in Sudan.
Much less critical attention has been paid to the NBA’s commercial partnership with Rwanda, whose army and senior officials the US government recently sanctioned for backing a deadly armed group that is committing “horrific human rights abuses.” Rwanda has been a central partner in the Basketball Africa League (BAL), the NBA’s first professional basketball league outside North America. The Rwandan government pays the NBA between $6 million and $7 million annually to be a sponsor and to host some of the BAL playoffs. And Rwanda’s national airline is the official travel partner for the BAL.
The Los Angeles Clippers signed their own sponsorship deal with Rwanda last year. “Visit Rwanda” is their official jersey patch sponsor, so it appears on all uniforms. There is “Visit Rwanda” branding in the Clippers’ arena, and it is the official coffee sponsor for the team.
The NBA and the Clippers have some uncomfortable decisions to make. Should they continue to accept money from a government that is in large part responsible for one of the largest humanitarian emergencies in the world?
The uncomfortable truth for the NBA and the Clippers is that Rwanda invaded eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2022 and dramatically escalated its invasion last year, deploying up to 12,000 troops and backing a very violent proxy rebel group known as the M23. Under Rwandan command and control, the M23 has committed extensive human rights abuses, including mass killings targeted at certain ethnic groups, torture, and forced deportations. Over 5 million people in DRC are now displaced from their homes due to the conflict, and 10 million people are now at risk of starvation, as M23 “has driven farmers from their land… and blocked food imports.”
NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum responded to a bipartisan letter from US senators in September 2024, "If American policies were to change regarding business activities in and relating to Rwanda or any other BAL market, our actions would, of course, change accordingly."
Therein lies the rub. US policy on Rwanda has changed suddenly and significantly over the last two months, with major implications for the NBA’s close involvement with Rwanda. Just days following the signing of a peace accord between Rwanda and DRC brokered by the US and overseen by President Donald Trump last December, Rwanda and its proxy force launched a new, bloody offensive that left 200,000 more civilians displaced. Instead of pulling back to make peace, Rwanda doubled down on war right after telling the White House it would do the opposite.
The breach of the peace agreement has since led to a major shift in long-standing US policy on Rwanda. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated in December that “Rwanda’s actions are… a clear violation of the Washington Accords…, and the United States will take action to ensure promises made to the President are kept.” US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz then argued that “Rwanda is leading the region… toward more war.”
The US government has followed up with a series of actions, including placing sanctions on the entire Rwandan army, visa restrictions on senior Rwandan officials, suspending a US-Rwanda health agreement, and canceling an investment conference and negotiations with Rwanda over a new development finance project.
M23 forces continue to occupy nearly all strategic areas of eastern DRC, Rwanda maintains 7,000 troops there, and the conflict is deepening. Notably, the DRC government is also responsible for many human rights abuses, and it must halt its partnerships with deadly armed groups.
Rwanda is also profiting from the deadly trade in illicit gold and other minerals from eastern DRC, minerals that provide fuel for the conflict. Rwanda-backed M23 occupies key gold and critical minerals mines and exports the minerals to Rwanda. Despite having no major domestic gold mines, Rwanda is estimated to have skyrocketed its gold exports to $2 billion in 2025, a more than five-fold increase from four years ago. Ironically, most of their smuggled gold exports go to the UAE, the other major NBA partner.
Because of Rwanda’s heinous behavior in eastern DRC, several major sports teams have recently halted their partnerships with the Rwandan government following campaigns from human rights groups. The English soccer club Arsenal ended its commercial branding deal with Rwanda following a campaign by the group Gunners for Peace, as did German soccer giant Bayern Munich.
The NBA’s main defense of its commercial partnership with Rwanda has been that its dealings have been consistent with US policy. That policy has now changed in response to Rwanda’s unwillingness to end its greed-fueled military intervention in DRC.
The NBA and the Clippers have some uncomfortable decisions to make. Should they continue to accept money from a government that is in large part responsible for one of the largest humanitarian emergencies in the world? Should they continue to be part of Rwanda’s strategy of “sportswashing” its image? Can they follow in the footsteps of Arsenal and Bayern Munich and drop Rwanda’s commercial branding sponsorship? These questions won’t garner the same attention as gambling players and tanking teams, but the stakes for millions of Congolese lives couldn’t be greater.
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The Peace Deal That Wasn’t
Trump’s Congo-Rwanda Peace Accord is an affront to Congolese human rights and sovereignty.
Aug 03, 2025
After the signing of the so-called peace agreement between Rwanda and Congo on June 27, U.S. President Donald Trump took a victory lap. “This is a Great Day for Africa and, quite frankly, a Great Day for the World! I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize for this... but the people know, and that’s all that matters to me!” he posted. The agreement, heralded as a breakthrough ending more than three decades of violence in Congo, was quickly praised by powerful institutions in the West, including the United Nations and the European Union.
There’s no question that peace in Congo is a desperately needed goal. Since 1996, war in the country has killed nearly 6 million people and displaced over 7 million. More than 21 million require humanitarian assistance, and in 2023 alone, the U.N. recorded over 133,000 cases of sexual violence, almost certainly a significant undercount.
However, while world leaders and celebratory headlines applaud the deal, violence continues to rage in the eastern Congo. The deal will not end this suffering; instead, it prioritizes Western private interests over peace, justice, and dignity for the Congolese people, serving as a blueprint for resource extraction and continued violence in the country rather than a true diplomatic success.
The deal, while ostensibly aimed at ending hostilities, places a heavy emphasis on mineral exploitation, leading Congolese civil society to question its true purpose. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr. Denis Mukwege has denounced it for “legitimizing the plundering of Congolese natural resources,” a concern supported by the agreement’s inclusion of a clause committing signatories to “launch and/or expand cooperation on… formalized end-to-end mineral value chains… with the U.S. government and U.S. investors.” Upon the release of the Declaration of Principles that laid the deal’s foundations, the International Crisis Group noted that the deal reads “partly like a framework for ending a conflict and partly like a commercial memorandum.”
The False Promise of Peace
It is highly unlikely that the deal will bring a just and lasting peace to Congo. Though a potential cease-fire was announced between the Congo government and M23, the conflict’s largest rebel group, experts say that M23 has already broken the agreement while serious implementation challenges remain. M23 has left withdrawal—and, thus, a true and lasting end to the conflict—out of the question, telling reporters they “will not retreat, not even by one meter.” Meanwhile, over 100 other armed groups continue to fight in the east. On July 23, the U.N. condemned three recent deadly attacks by groups not party to the agreement.
More troublingly, the deal grants Rwanda a green light to continue looting Congolese resources, furthering a central driver of the conflict. By backing M23, Rwanda has taken control of Congolese mines, and committed widespread human rights abuses. Up to 90% of its coltan exports are believed to be illicitly smuggled from eastern Congo, funding armed groups. The accord, which invites Rwanda into a “regional economic integration framework,” legitimizes this theft and proxy warfare.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame doesn’t seem ready to scale back this influence. Just days after the agreement was signed, he cast doubt on the peace process, telling reporters, “If the side that we are working with plays tricks... then we deal with the problem like we have been dealing with it.”
Who Does the Deal Really Benefit?
Today, the Congolese people endure violence not only from armed conflict but also from systemic exploitation, through forced labor, environmental destruction, and land seizures. The scramble for Congo’s mineral wealth has forced tens of thousands of children into dangerous mines, polluted and devastated ecosystems, and displaced entire communities from their homes.
A recent policy brief by the Oakland Institute lays bare how, through handing over Congolese mineral wealth to a web of U.S.-aligned corporate actors and billionaire investors, Trump’s peace deal will deepen the ravages of the country’s mining industry, leaving the Congolese people to pay the price.
The list of the deal’s likely beneficiaries is a veritable who’s-who of Trump-linked billionaires: Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, and Ben Horowitz, among others. Also on it are mining giants like Ivanhoe Mines, Rio Tinto, and Glencore.
The accord threatens to entrench this cyclical poverty and violence in service of enriching behemoth mining firms and Trump’s billionaire friends.
The track records of these companies undermine any claim that Trump’s deal is about peace for the Congolese people. Ivanhoe Mines’s cochair Robert Friedland once ran Galactic Resources, responsible for one of the worst mining-related environmental disasters in U.S. history. He has already been exposed for harmfully evicting Congolese families to expand his new operations in the Congo. Rio Tinto, notorious for sparking a civil war in Papua New Guinea and for destroying a 46,000-year-old sacred Aboriginal site in Australia, is now eyeing Congo’s Manono Lithium Deposit. Glencore has been fined over $1 billion for abuses in its African mines and maintains illicit financial ties to sanctioned Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler. Both Ivanhoe and Rio Tinto are reportedly set to join a forthcoming minerals agreement tied directly to the deal’s economy-driven clauses.
Lacking the infrastructure to process its own resources, Congo remains trapped in a cycle where foreign actors siphon off its $24 trillion in mineral wealth while its citizens remain among the poorest in the world. Compounding that systemic inequality, both corporate and artisanal mines enact severe human rights abuses and environmental devastation on the Congolese people, injustices that the agreement appears likely to bolster as it opens the door to firms perpetrating them against communities around the globe. In doing so, the accord threatens to entrench this cyclical poverty and violence in service of enriching behemoth mining firms and Trump’s billionaire friends.
Despite what he may think, or wish, Donald Trump deserves no applause for this “peace agreement” because the agreement itself is misnamed. Its focus has never been peace, but rather profit, and his attempt to launder it into something more benevolent is transparently disingenuous.
Without a radical shift, Trump’s deal will likely achieve exactly what it was intended for, funneling billions to already wealthy oligarchs and multinational corporations while sidelining the communities forced to live with its consequences.
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Rwanda Confirms Talks With Trump Administration to Take Deported Migrants
"As we did with the U.K.-Rwanda deportation deal... let us unapologetically and loudly oppose this again," said one Rwandan human rights defender.
May 05, 2025
Rwanda's foreign minister confirmed Sunday that the East African nation's government is in "early stage" talks with the Trump administration about possibly taking in migrants deported from the United States.
"It has not yet reached a stage where we can say exactly how things will proceed, but the talks are ongoing," Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe told Rwanda TV. He added that the Rwandan government is in the "spirit" of offering "another chance to migrants who have problems across the world."
Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration is seeking nations that are willing to accept its deportees.
"We want to send you some of the most despicable human beings to your countries."
"We are working with other countries to say, 'We want to send you some of the most despicable human beings to your countries. Will you do that as a favor to us?'" Rubio said. "And the farther away from America, the better, so they can't come back across the border."
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Trump administration officials have also asked other countries including Benin, Eswatini, Kosovo, Libya, Moldova, and Mongolia about resettling U.S. deportees.
In 2022, Rwanda agreed to take in some people seeking asylum in the United Kingdom while their claims were being processed. However, the scheme was shelved amid legal and human rights concerns following the return to power of the center-left Labour Party. Rwanda is still seeking to collect £50 million ($66.4 million) from Britain despite the canceled deal.
The United Nations refugee agency condemned the U.K.-Rwanda deal, asserting that "externalizing asylum obligations poses serious risks for the safety of refugees" and "is not compatible with international refugee law."
Local human rights defenders strongly oppose any resettlement of third-country migrants in Rwanda.
"I with other concerned and responsible Rwandans are going to wage a legal war to challenge this arrangement between [Trump's] government and the dictatorial regime of [Rwandan President Paul Kagame]," investigative journalist Samuel Baker Byansi said on social media Sunday.
"Rwanda is not a dumping site of migrants with criminal records who have served their sentence in the U.S.," he added. "As we did with the U.K.-Rwanda deportation deal, fellow Rwandans in the country and abroad, let us unapologetically and loudly oppose this again."
Last month, the U.S. deported Omar Abdulsattar Ameen, an Iraqi refugee who had lived in the United States since 2014, to Rwanda after officials in Baghdad accused him of being a former Islamic State militant who murdered an Iraqi police officer. This, despite a U.S. judge's order blocking his deportation on the grounds that the murder allegation was "not plausible" since Ameen was living in Turkey at the time of the officer's killing.
Critics have sounded the alarm over potential perils migrants might face in Rwanda, including human rights violations and the possibility that they could be sent to third countries where they are at risk of violence and persecution.
The Trump administration is facing legal challenges to its mass deportation efforts, which include sending immigrants to the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay and the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison in El Salvador. President Donald Trump has even proposed deporting U.S. citizens to CECOT.
Trump appeared on NBC News' "Meet the Press" Sunday and was pressed by moderator Kristen Welker about the legality of his mass deportation program. Asked whether every person in the United States is entitled to due process, Trump replied: "I don't know. I'm not a lawyer."
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'Shameful': UK Conservatives Push Through Plan to Deport Asylum-Seekers to Rwanda
"The U.K. government could literally pay every refugee a £30,000 annual salary for life, and it would be cheaper," said one critic. "We're burning money just to enjoy the cruelty."
Apr 23, 2024
Legal and human rights experts on Tuesday said the British Conservative Party's decision to push through a bill allowing the government to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda—effectively overriding last year's Supreme Court ruling—represented a "desperate low" from lawmakers eager to exploit migrants ahead of elections expected later this year.
"A lot of this is performative cruelty," Daniel Merriman, a lawyer whose clients have included some asylum-seekers whom the Tories tried to deport after it first introduced its plan in 2022, told NPR. "The elephant in the room is the upcoming election."
After a prolonged debate, the unelected House of Lords cleared the way to pass the Safety of Rwanda bill early Tuesday morning, after dropping several proposed amendments including one that would have required independent verification that the central African country is a safe place to send migrants.
The House of Commons then passed the bill, and King Charles III is expected to formally approve the legislation in the coming days.
The bill requires courts and immigration officials to "conclusively treat the Republic of Rwanda as a safe country" to send asylum-seekers, even though the Supreme Court ruled in November that people deported to the country would face a significant risk of refoulement, or being sent back to the countries where they originally fled persecution or violence.
The Conservative government signed a treaty with Rwanda last December to strengthen protections for asylum-seekers, including a provision that partially bans Rwanda from sending people back to their home countries.
But the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) called on the U.K. to abandon the plan and instead "take practical measures to address irregular flows of refugees and migrants, based on international cooperation and respect for international human rights law."
"The new legislation marks a further step away from the U.K.'s long tradition of providing refuge to those in need, in breach of the Refugee Convention," said Filippo Grandi, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees. "Protecting refugees requires all countries—not just those neighboring crisis zones—to uphold their obligations. This arrangement seeks to shift responsibility for refugee protection, undermining international cooperation and setting a worrying global precedent."
"The U.K. has a proud history of effective, independent judicial scrutiny," Grandi added. "It can still take the right steps and put in place measures to help address the factors that drive people to leave home, and share responsibility for those in need of protection, with European and other international partners."
Dorothy Guerrero, head of policy and advocacy at Global Justice Now, noted that "disastrous foreign and economic policies of successive governments have contributed to the need for people to seek refuge."
"These same people's lives are continually used as a political football, after years of being scapegoats for bad government decisions," said Guerrero. "Statements from politicians are now even more blatantly devoid of any pretense of care for human rights. We will not stop pushing for a change of course, with safe routes to seek asylum in the U.K. so that people no longer have to risk their lives in the Channel."
"The passing of the Rwanda Bill is a shameful day for the U.K.," she added.
Hours after the legislation was passed, French officials announced that at least five people, including a seven-year-old child, had been killed while attempting to cross the English Channel, bound for the U.K. in an overloaded inflatable boat.
At The New Statesman, associate political editor Rachel Cunliffe wrote Tuesday that the tragedy reveals "the flaws of the Rwanda plan," which proponents say could deter migrants from seeking refuge in Britain.
Proponents of the Rwanda plan will inevitably point to today's disaster as further evidence that strong measures are needed to address the issue of Channel crossings. They will accuse Labour and opposition parties of ignoring the human cost of letting this crisis continue and argue that lives are at stake if the government does not act.
[...]
The reality is that a substantial number of people who pay people traffickers large sums of money to crowd them on to a tiny boat do so because they feel they have no other option. Fleeing war and persecution, they are desperate. And so they are prepared to take desperate measures. Measures that sometimes lead to tragedy, but which are deemed necessary given the hopelessness of their situation.
It is hard to see how the threat to send a tiny fraction of those who arrive (Rwanda has said it will only take 150-200 migrants) changes this calculation.
The Labour Party, which is leading Conservatives in polls ahead of the expected elections, has vowed to scrap the legislation if it wins control of the government later this year, and critics have expressed doubt that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will actually secure deportation flights before Britons vote.
One flight was grounded in June 2022 after the European Court of Human Rights intervened, and on Monday the OHCHR warned aviation authorities that they would risk violating international law if they allow "unlawful removals" of asylum-seekers to Rwanda.
Critics have also pointed to a finding by the National Audit Office that the deportations would cost £1.8 million ($2.2 million) per person.
"The U.K. government could literally pay every refugee a £30,000 annual salary for life, and it would be cheaper than sending them to Rwanda," said David Andress, a history professor at the University of Portsmouth. "We're burning money just to enjoy the cruelty."
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Refuting Jurists, Lloyd Austin Says US Has No Evidence of Gaza Genocide
The U.S. defense secretary's remarks came after Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other law experts around the world asserted that Israel's Gaza onslaught meets the legal definition of genocide.
Apr 09, 2024
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday became the latest Biden administration official to deny that Israel's six-month bombardment, invasion, and siege of Gaza constitute a genocide, a statement that came after Sen. Elizabeth Warren joined a growing number of international jurists asserting that Israeli policies and actions are genocidal under the letter of the law.
After pro-Palestine protesters wearing T-shirts with the message "Austin's Legacy = Genocide" interrupted a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday morning, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) asked the Pentagon chief if Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.
"We don't have any evidence of genocide being created," Austin replied after a short pause.
After telling the defense secretary his response was "better than" the replies from CIA Director William Burns and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines—whom Cotton said "dodged that question" before the committee last month—the senator asked Austin to respond to allegations of "greenlighting genocide" in Gaza.
"From the very beginning, we committed to help assist Israel in defending its territory and its people by providing security assistance, and I would remind everybody, you know, that what happened on October 7 was absolutely horrible," Austin said, referring to the Hamas-led attacks in which more than 1,100 Israelis and others were killed—at least some of them by so-called "friendly fire"—and over 240 others were kidnapped.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, when asked if he believes Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza: "We don't have evidence of that."
So, Israel's killing of more than 33,000 Palestinians—44% of whom are children—in 6 months, after top Israeli officials… pic.twitter.com/50cznisMxn
— Rachel Blevins (@RachBlevins) April 9, 2024
Austin's remarks followed reports that U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told constituents that Israel's war on Gaza—which has killed and wounded more than 116,000 Palestinians including people believed dead and buried beneath rubble while displacing around 90% of the population and causing mass starvation—meets the legal definition of genocide.
"If you want to do it as an application of law, I believe that they'll find that it is genocide, and they have ample evidence to do so," Warren—a former law professor with three decades of experience—told an audience Friday at the Islamic Center of Boston in Wayland, Massachusetts.
In January, the International Court of Justice in The Hague
issued a preliminary ruling in a case brought by South Africa and supported by over 30 other nations that found Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza. The ICJ ordered Israel to prevent genocidal acts—a directive that numerous international human rights experts say is being ignored.
A March draft report by the United Nations Human Rights Council found "reasonable grounds to believe" Israel is perpetrating genocide against Palestinians.
At least hundreds of legal scholars around the world have accused Israel of genocide. So have some Israelis, including Raz Segal, one of the country's preeminent Holocaust scholars, who in October said that Israel is perpetrating "a textbook case of genocide" in Gaza.
Progressive U.S. lawmakers including Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.)—the only Palestinian American member of Congress—Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have also accused Israel of genocide.
“We have to re-humanise the people whose death has been normalised.”
Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez discussed her decision to use the term "genocide" in Congress when describing Israel's actions in Gaza during an interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert pic.twitter.com/tKAJQTD0XT
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) April 9, 2024
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden and members of his administration have been called genocide deniers for dismissing the assessments of legal experts on the matter, including a federal judge in California who—while absolving the United States of complicity—found that South Africa's ICJ allegations are "plausible."
In late October, Biden publicly cast doubt on Gaza casualty figures provided by Hamas-run agencies, even though Israeli and international media, human rights groups, and his own administration have relied upon those same sources—which have held up under scrutiny—for years.
In February, Austin acknowledged that "over 25,000" Palestinian women and children had been killed by Israeli forces at that point in the war, although the Pentagon subsequently attempted to walk back the defense secretary's remarks.
Biden—who early in the war declared his "unwavering, rock-solid" support for Israel—is seeking an additional $14.3 billion in armed assistance for Israel atop the nearly $4 billion it already receives from Washington. The president has also repeatedly sidestepped Congress in order to fast-track emergency military aid to the key Middle Eastern ally.
The Biden administration has approved more than 100 arms transfers to Israel during the war, including shipments of 2,000-pound bombs that can wipe out entire city blocks and have been used in some of Israel's deadliest strikes, including the October 31 bombing of the Jabalia refugee camp that killed more than 120 civilians.
Biden now wants to sell Israel $18 billion worth of F-15 fighter jets, even after the president acknowledged Israel's "indiscriminate bombing" of Gaza. In addition to progressive members of Congress—who have long opposed unconditional U.S. military aid to Israel—a growing number of centrist Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who recently called on the FBI to investigate peace activists demanding a Gaza cease-fire, are now urging Biden to halt arms transfers to Israel.
The United States—which committed genocide against the Indigenous peoples of North America—has a long history of supporting genocidal regimes. Since the end of World War II, the U.S. has provided military, financial, and diplomatic support for the perpetrators of genocides in Guatemala, Paraguay, Bangladesh, Kurdistan, and East Timor.
The U.S. has also been accused of turning a blind eye to genocides in countries from Nazi Germany to Rwanda, which on Sunday marked the 30th anniversary of the mass murder of around 800,000 people, most of them ethnic Tutsis, in a campaign of state-sanctioned slaughter.
During her speech, Warren said that responses to Gaza should transcend a "labels argument."
"For me, it is far more important to say what Israel is doing is wrong. And it is wrong," she said. "It is wrong to starve children within a civilian population in order to try to bend to your will. It is wrong to drop 2,000-pound bombs in densely populated civilian areas."
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British Supreme Court Rules UK Can't Deport Refugees to Rwanda
"The only responsible, effective, and decent response to this judgement should be to get down to the serious task of fairly and efficiently determining people's claims," said one rights advocate.
Nov 15, 2023
Rights advocates in the United Kingdom on Wednesday called on the Conservative government to finally abandon its efforts to detain and deport asylum-seekers after the British Supreme Court ruled that a proposal to send refugees to the East African country of Rwanda violated domestic and international law and could not move forward.
Speaking for five justices on the court, Justice Robert Reed said the Supreme Court agreed with an earlier ruling by the British Court of Appeal, which had found that refugees sent to Rwanda faced a significant risk of refoulement, or being sent back to the countries where they originally fled persecution or violence.
"We agree with their conclusion," said Reed.
The judge pointed out that Britain follows the legal principle of non-refoulement under the United Nations Refugee Convention and several other international agreements.
"It is a core principle of international law, to which the United Kingdom government has repeatedly committed itself on the international stage," Reed said.
Despite this fact, former Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the plan to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda in 2022, and his successor, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, pledged to follow through on the effort.
The government has already paid Rwanda 140 million pounds (nearly $175 million) with the intention of deporting anyone who used "illegal, dangerous, or unnecessary methods" to reach the U.K., including on small boats. More than 45,000 people crossed the English Channel on small vessels in 2022.
A deportation flight was scheduled for June 14, 2022, but a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights forced the government to ground the plane, which was carrying a man who had sought refuge in England after leaving Iraq. Subsequent legal challenges kept other refugees from being sent to Rwanda.
Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who was fired this week after saying unhoused people had made a "lifestyle choice" and claiming London police were biased toward pro-Palestinian rights protesters, had said it was her "dream" to send refugees to Rwanda and had pushed for the U.K. to exit the European Convention on Human Rights in order to move forward with the policy.
"That 'dream' has just been ruled to be unlawful by the Supreme Court," said Member of Parliament Zarah Sultana. "Let's make sure that's the end of these cruel and callous anti-migrant policies."
Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International, called the ruling one piece of good news in an "ocean of horrific sufferings."
Amnesty International U.K.'s chief executive, Sacha Deshmukh, called on new Home Secretary James Cleverly to "not only abandon the idea of doing a deal with Rwanda, but to scrap the underlying policy of refusing to process people's asylum claims and the Illegal Migration Act that has entrenched that dismal policy."
The law, which passed in July, states that anyone who arrives in the U.K. via small boats or other "unsafe" methods will have their asylum claim deemed "inadmissable."
"This policy has made complete chaos of the U.K.'s asylum system and this shameful deal has simply exacerbated the mess," said Deshmukh. "The only responsible, effective, and decent response to this judgement should be to get down to the serious task of fairly and efficiently determining people's claims."
"The idea that the U.K. should withdraw from the European Convention to pursue this failed policy is nonsensical and should be immediately binned," he added. "The government should make policies which fit with the law, not fit the law around their policies."
Nearly 130 U.K. rights organizations signed a joint statement on Wednesday welcoming the Supreme Court's ruling and and urging the government to "protect the rights of people who have come to our country in search of sanctuary."
"While we welcome the decision today, we remain concerned by this government's overall treatment of people who move to their country," said the groups, including the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), the Scottish Refugee Council, and the Muslim Council of Britain. "We know that as a community we are compassionate and welcoming, and we need immigration policies that are rooted in that same care, compassion, and respect for human rights."
The JCWI noted that Sunak's government could still try to move forward with the Rwanda deal "in a different form, such as a treaty which would need to go through Parliament."
"Our fight continues!" said the group. "Although immediate removal risks are reduced, challenges persist. Let's resist hostile policies and safeguard the universal right to seek asylum in the U.K."
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Migration Bill Passed by UK Violates International Human Rights Law: UN Experts
"This bill sets a worrying precedent for dismantling asylum-related obligations that other countries, including in Europe, may be tempted to follow," said the U.N. human rights chief.
Jul 18, 2023
A pair of United Nations commissioners on Tuesday accused the United Kingdom of violating its international human rights and refugee law obligations after the country's Conservative Party-led Parliament approved legislation cracking down on asylum-seekers.
Tories passed the so-called Illegal Migration Bill, the centerpiece of right-wing U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's pledge to "stop the boats" crossing the English Channel, on Monday night. It is set to become law once King Charles III gives his "royal assent," which a monarch hasn't used to block a bill in 315 years.
After that formality, the measure "will have profound consequences for people in need of international protection," U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk and U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi warned in a joint statement.
As the U.N. Human Rights Office explained:
The bill extinguishes access to asylum in the U.K. for anyone who arrives irregularly, having passed through a country—however briefly—where they did not face persecution. It bars them from presenting refugee protection or other human rights claims, no matter how compelling their circumstances. In addition, it requires their removal to another country, with no guarantee that they will necessarily be able to access protection there. It creates sweeping new detention powers, with limited judicial oversight.
"For decades, the U.K. has provided refuge to those in need, in line with its international obligations—a tradition of which it has been rightly proud," said Grandi. "This new legislation significantly erodes the legal framework that has protected so many, exposing refugees to grave risks in breach of international law."
According to the U.N. Human Rights Office, the legislation "denies access to protection in the U.K. for anyone falling within its scope—including unaccompanied and separated children—regardless of whether they are at risk of persecution, may have suffered human rights violations, or whether they are survivors of human trafficking or modern-day slavery and may have other well-founded claims under international human rights and humanitarian law."
In Türk's words, "Carrying out removals under these circumstances is contrary to prohibitions of refoulement and collective expulsions, rights to due process, to family and private life, and the principle of best interests of children concerned."
"In addition to raising very serious legal concerns from the international perspective," Türk continued, "this bill sets a worrying precedent for dismantling asylum-related obligations that other countries, including in Europe, may be tempted to follow, with a potentially adverse effect on the international refugee and human rights protection system as a whole."
Last month, the U.K. Court of Appeal ruled that the Tories' widely condemned plan to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda is unlawful because the African nation cannot be classified as a "safe third country."
Sunak and U.K. Home Secretary Suella Braverman have vowed to challenge the ruling in the U.K. Supreme Court. The courtroom battle over the legality of the so-called U.K.-Rwanda Asylum Partnership Arrangement could have implications for the fate of the broader Illegal Migration Bill. It also underscores how the newly approved legislation threatens to leave asylum-seekers in limbo.
The U.N. Human Rights Office warned Tuesday that "in the absence of viable removal arrangements with third countries, or without adequate operational capacity to remove large numbers of asylum-seekers, thousands can be expected to remain in the U.K. indefinitely in precarious legal situations."
"The legislation will exacerbate the already vulnerable situation of people who arrive irregularly in the U.K., drastically limiting the enjoyment of their human rights, and putting them at risk of detention and destitution," the office added. "As a result, their rights to health, an adequate standard of living, and to work are at risk, exposing them to the risk of exploitation and abuse."
According to the Financial Times:
The end of the legislative debate between the Commons and the Lords came as the Bibby Stockholm barge docked in Dorset where it is expected to house up to 500 migrants, with the first arrivals expected this month.
Ministers' plans to house asylum-seekers in the 93-meter-long vessel have faced intense backlash from local people and council members, who said the proposal was cruel and would place undue strain on the community.
Türk noted that "the U.K. has long had a commitment to upholding international human rights and refugee law."
"Such steadfast commitment is needed today more than ever," said Türk. "I urge the U.K. government to renew this commitment to human rights by reversing this law and ensuring that the rights of all migrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers are respected, protected, and fulfilled, without discrimination."
"This should include efforts to guarantee expeditious and fair processing of asylum and human rights claims, improve reception conditions, and increase the availability and accessibility of safe pathways for regular migration," added the U.N. human rights chief.
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'Good News': Tory Plan to Send Asylum-Seekers to Rwanda Ruled Unlawful by UK Court
"The U.K. government's 'cash for humans' deal with Rwanda is not only deeply immoral, it flies in the face of the laws of this country," said one advocate.
Jun 29, 2023
The United Kingdom Court of Appeal ruled Thursday that the Conservative Party's widely denounced plan to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda is unlawful because the African nation cannot be classified as a "safe third country."
The right-wing Tory proposal to give refugee applicants one-way plane tickets to an unfamiliar country more than 4,000 miles away is not yet dead as British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Home Secretary Suella Braverman have already vowed to challenge the ruling in the U.K. Supreme Court. Nevertheless, Labour Party MPs and human rights campaigners welcomed the decision while stressing the need to remain vigilant.
"Brilliant news," tweeted Yasmine Ahmed, the U.K. director at Human Rights Watch. HRW has long opposed the Tories' effort to outsource migrant detention, condemning it as an abrogation of the U.K.'s obligations under international law and a "copycat" version of Australia's "disastrous" offshore asylum processing regime.
"The government must now consign this unlawful, cruel, and inhumane proposal to the history books," Ahmed added Thursday. "It's time for an asylum policy which treats people with respect and dignity."
HRW refugee advocate Emilie McDonnell shared a similar message. "Finally some good news!" she wrote on social media. "The government should now put this cruel, unlawful, and costly policy in the bin where it belongs."
"This judgment is very welcome, but it can't undo the enormous suffering, harm, and expense already caused by the government's long and reckless pursuit of a patently unjust scheme."
Since last year, successive right-wing U.K. governments have sought to expel tens of thousands of asylum-seekers to Rwanda, paying the country $177 million upfront to house vulnerable migrants just months after criticizing it for being repressive.
Then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed in April 2022 that the forced relocation program, officially called the U.K.-Rwanda Asylum Partnership Arrangement, is necessary to prevent "people smugglers" from turning the English Channel into a "watery graveyard." In response to such arguments, left-wing MP Zarah Sultana of the opposition Labour Party said, "Deporting refugees to Rwanda has nothing to do with tackling people trafficking and everything to do with whipping up hate and stoking division."
The first removal flight was scheduled to take off last June, but a last-minute intervention by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) stopped that from happening. The injunction imposed by the ECHR blocks deportations from proceeding until all relevant legal disputes in the U.K. are resolved.
In Thursday's decision, which overturned the U.K. High Court's December opinion upholding the plan, a three-judge panel from the U.K. Court of Appeal ruled 2-1 that Rwanda should not be regarded as safe, striking a blow at the heart of the Tories' scheme. Evidence provided by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees proved key to the challenge brought by asylum-seekers and human rights groups.
Though he disagreed with his fellow jurists, Lord Chief Justice Ian Burnett said the majority found "the deficiencies in the asylum system in Rwanda are such that there are substantial grounds for believing that there is a real risk that persons sent to Rwanda will be returned to their home countries where they face persecution or other inhumane treatment."
"The result is that the High Court's decision that Rwanda was a safe third country is reversed and that unless and until the deficiencies in its asylum processes are corrected removal of asylum-seekers to Rwanda will be unlawful," he added.
Sonya Sceats, chief executive of Freedom from Torture, said the verdict confirmed that "the U.K. government's 'cash for humans' deal with Rwanda is not only deeply immoral, it flies in the face of the laws of this country."
As The Financial Times reported, "The court rejected other grounds of the appeal by human rights organizations, including more fundamental aspects, such as the appellants' contention that the policy would put the U.K. in breach of the U.N. Refugee Convention."
Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: "We are relieved that the court of appeal has ruled that Rwanda is not a safe country for people who claim asylum. However, we're disappointed that they have not concluded that the overall policy is unlawful."
The Law Society of England and Wales argued that the ruling against the U.K.-Rwanda Asylum Partnership Arrangement calls into question the legality of the broader so-called "Illegal Migration Bill" now moving through the British Parliament.
That legislation "would place a legal duty on the government to detain and remove those arriving in the U.K. illegally, to Rwanda or another 'safe' third country," The Guardian reported. "A large backlog of people due to be removed under the bill will build, the society said, adding: 'They will be left in limbo and could remain in detention or government supported accommodation indefinitely.'"
"The Rwanda deal is a cynical distraction from the pressing need to radically reform our own chronically failing asylum procedures."
Asylum Aid director Alison Pickup told Al Jazeera that many of her clients breathed a sigh of relief on Thursday.
"Some of them have experienced torture, they've had very traumatic journeys, and have been waiting for over a year to find out if they will be able to make a case in the U.K.—or if they will be sent to Rwanda, a country they know nothing about," she said, expressing hope that the ruling will "give them that reassurance of safety."
In a statement, Sunak said, "I strongly believe the Rwandan government has provided the assurances necessary to ensure there is no real risk that asylum-seekers relocated under the Rwanda policy would be wrongly returned to third countries, something that the lord chief justice agrees with."
"The policy of this government is very simple: It is this country—and your government—who should decide who comes here, not criminal gangs," said the prime minister. "And I will do whatever is necessary to make that happen."
Braverman, for her part, said that she is "determined to deliver" and "won't take a backward step from that."
Yvette Cooper, a Labour Party MP serving as shadow home secretary, welcomed the court's blow to the Tories' "unworkable, unethical, and extortionate" Rwanda plan and argued that Sunak's pledge to "stop the boats" is "completely unraveling."
BBC News analyst Joe Inwood cautioned, however, that what happens at the U.K. Supreme Court "is anyone's guess. But given that the two previous courts have given conflicting verdicts, defeat for the government is not guaranteed."
Meanwhile, Amnesty International U.K.'s chief executive Sacha Deshmukh said that "this judgment is very welcome, but it can't undo the enormous suffering, harm, and expense already caused by the government's long and reckless pursuit of a patently unjust scheme."
"The Rwanda deal is a cynical distraction from the pressing need to radically reform our own chronically failing asylum procedures —which are slow, increasingly chaotic, and leave thousands of people stranded in limbo for years," said Deshmukh. "The government should now completely abandon the Rwanda deal—and any others like it—before doing any more damage to our international reputation or to the people threatened by such plans."
"Shamefully, the government is still trying to force legislation through parliament to compel it to expel from the U.K. almost everyone who may ever seek asylum here," Deshmukh added. "While this judgment may mean that ministers must rethink their plan to use Rwanda for that purpose, they should take this as the opportunity to stop playing politics with people's lives, scrap the reckless immigration bill, and get down to the serious task of fairly and efficiently deciding the claims of the still relatively few people who seek asylum here."
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Will Britain's Migrant Deportation Plan Get Off the Ground?
The policy, which involves Britain forcibly sending tens of thousands of migrants to Rwanda in an alleged effort to tackle the record number of refugees and asylum seekers arriving in the U.K. on small boats, has been mired by controversy.
Dec 25, 2022
The UK's plan to deport migrants to Rwanda is lawful, the High Court ruled on Monday.
The policy, which involves Britain forcibly sending tens of thousands of migrants to Rwanda in an alleged effort to tackle the record number of refugees and asylum seekers arriving in the UK on small boats, has been mired by controversy.
Many asylum seekers have had a lack of access to legal representation and advice and no access to translated documents from the Home Office.
"People who have suffered the horrors of war, torture, and human rights abuses should not be faced with the immense trauma of deportation to a future where we cannot guarantee their safety. We believe that sending refugees to Rwanda will breach our country's obligations under International Treaties and we continue to believe this policy is unlawful," Care4Calais said after the court ruling.
The ruling came as a relief for newly appointed Prime Minister Rishi Sunak who has made a high-stakes political promise to tackle the 'migration problem' in Britain.
However, the plan has attracted criticism from opposition parties and human rights organizations in the UK, as well as across the international community, including the UN. "UNHCR remains firmly opposed to arrangements that seek to transfer refugees and asylum seekers to third countries in the absence of sufficient safeguards and standards. Such arrangements simply shift asylum responsibilities, evade international obligations, and are contrary to the letter and spirit of the Refugee Convention," the UNHCR's Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Gillian Triggs, announced back in April.
A report published by Medical Justice condemns the UK government's deportation plan, claiming that Rwanda deportees include victims of torture and human trafficking. It adds that many asylum seekers have had a lack of access to legal representation and advice and no access to translated documents from the Home Office relating to their imminent removal and deportation to Rwanda.
For many, the deal represents a crisis of responsibility, rather than a "migration crisis". It ignores the UK's international commitments and sets a dangerous precedent for other countries looking to leverage migration for political ends. Denmark is one of the countries considering a similar deal with Rwanda.
However, for the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, the deal adds unnecessary pressure on the small African state. "Rwanda is a small country. We are also not economically a rich country, like the UK. So we still have many economic challenges, issues of water, distribution, scarcity, issues with electricity, and issues of gas. So we are not anywhere [near] ready to receive people coming from the UK," Frank Habineza, a politician from the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, told MEMO.
In spite of the court's green-lighting of the plan, there is currently no airline willing to carry asylum seekers to Rwanda, with the last company pulling out following pressure from activists. Having already spent £120 million on the deportation scheme, the coming year will see the British government wrangle new ways to make the plan – and its effort to reduce migrant numbers – a success. With only two years before the next general election, a lot is at stake. So far, in spite of the risk of being deported, more asylum seekers have crossed the Channel to the UK in 2022 than in previous years, this has brought into question the effectiveness of the plan and whether or not the "unlawful" policy can really get off the ground.
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UK Court Upholds 'Inhumane' Plan to Send Asylum-Seekers to Rwanda
"People will not stand by and watch this government treat refugees like human cargo," said one rights groups.
Dec 19, 2022
Human rights advocates on Monday vowed to continue fighting the United Kingdom's plan to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda if they arrive in the U.K. after crossing the English Channel by boat, after the country's High Court ruled that the Conservative Party's plan is lawful.
"If the government moves ahead with these harmful plans, it would damage the U.K.'s reputation as a country that values human rights."
Asylum Aid, which challenged the plan after it was introduced earlier this year, said it is determining whether "there are any grounds for appeal," while the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) vowed to continue leading opponents of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson's policy in obstructing the Conservatives' plans.
"We know that people coming together to oppose these flights is powerful," said the group, noting that a charter airline contracted to fly refugees to Rwanda pulled out of the deal under pressure. "People will not stand by and watch this government treat refugees like human cargo."
The High Court did rule that eight specific cases of refugees should be reconsidered and directed Home Secretary Suella Braverman to "decide if there is anything about each person's particular circumstances which means that his asylum claim should be determined in the United Kingdom or whether there are other reasons why he should not be relocated to Rwanda," rather than issuing a blanket policy for the thousands of people who arrive in the U.K. by small boat each year.
But it also said the policy does not run afoul of the country's Human Rights Act of 1998 and its obligations to refugees.
Enver Solomon, CEO of Refugee Council, argued the ruling violates international law.
"If the government moves ahead with these harmful plans, it would damage the U.K.'s reputation as a country that values human rights and undermine our commitment to provide safety to those fleeing conflict and oppression, as enshrined in the 1951 Refugee Convention," said Solomon, adding that the "hugely expensive" policy does not deter people from entering the U.K. by small boat, as the Conservatives intend to do.
Under the plan, Britain is paying more than PS120 million ($147 million) to finance education and job skills training for people it sends to Rwanda, under the stipulation that they cannot return to the United Kingdom. No one has been sent to Rwanda yet, as an order to send several people to the East African country was halted in June following a legal challenge.
Rwandan officials have said they can process 1,000 people during an initial trial period.
Advocates have decried the U.K. for entering into a deal with a country with what Human Rights Watch Central Africa director Lewis Mudge called an "abysmal human rights record" on Monday.
"The choice to enter into an asylum partnership with a government that takes pride in the assassinations and renditions of political opponents abroad, some of whom had refugee status at the time, shows just how far the U.K. is willing to go to shirk its own responsibilities to asylum-seekers," Mudge told The New York Times.
Rwanda has entered into agreements to resettle asylum-seekers in the past. In 2018, 12 refugees were killed by Rwandan police after a demonstration, and thousands of people who were deported from Israel between 2014 and 2017 left the country shortly after arriving. According to The Guardian, one person who remained "described being destitute and living on the streets of Rwanda's capital, Kigali."
Yasmine Ahmed, the U.K. director for Human Rights Watch, accused the country of "racing to the bottom to dismantle" refugee protections that were agreed to internationally after World War II.
"No matter how people arrive, they have the right under international law to claim asylum," said Ahmed. "People only come via unsafe routes, risking their and their children's lives, because the government has not provided sufficient safe ones."
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