Musings From Abroad

Asylum seekers’ lawyers insist UK/Rwanda migrant deal unlawful

Published

2 years ago

April 24, 2023

Lawyers representing a group of asylum seekers in the United Kingdom on Monday told the Court of Appeal in London that Britain’s plan to send migrants to Rwanda was unlawful.

One of their lawyers, Raza Husain argued that Rwanda was an authoritarian one-party state that did not tolerate opposition and imprisons, tortures, and murders opponents.

“There will only be any form of deterrent effect if a third country to which asylum seekers are removed is one to which they would not wish to go,” Husain said, arguing the government had failed to tread the line between deterring migrants and remaining within Britain’s human rights obligations.

The British government last year revealed plans to send thousands of migrants to the East African country as part of a 120 million pound ($148 million) deal to deter asylum seekers from crossing the English Channel from France in small boats.

A last-minute decision by the European Court of Human Rights, which placed an injunction banning any deportations until the conclusion of legal proceedings in Britain, prevented the first scheduled flight to Rwanda from taking off in June of last year.

The High Court in London decided the program was legal in December, but some human rights organizations and asylum seekers from countries like Syria, Sudan, Iraq, Iran, and Vietnam are challenging that ruling.

But lawyers representing the asylum seekers say the government’s argument that Rwanda is a “safe third country” is flawed.

But the British government lawyers insisted that the deal with Rwanda was “subject to an exacting set of monitoring arrangements”, including by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, who has intervened in the appeal.

They said in court filings that evidence about Rwanda’s asylum system was of little relevance as it had no bearing on how asylum seekers would be dealt with under the deal with Britain.

Meanwhile, one of three judges hearing the case, Ian Burnett, the Lord Chief Justice said the issue of the safety of Rwanda would be the core issue.

Last year, a record 45,000 migrants entered Britain in small boats. Finding a solution to the issue of illegal immigration is one of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s top concerns.

Musings From Abroad

UN Security Council deliberates stance on Sudan war

Published

4 days ago

November 13, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

The UN Security Council is discussing a British-drafted resolution calling on Sudan’s warring parties to stop hostilities and permit safe, quick, and unimpeded assistance supplies across borders and front lines.

The world’s largest relocation crisis began in April 2023 when the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces engaged in a power battle ahead of a planned transfer to civilian administration.

Waves of ethnically motivated violence have resulted, with the RSF mostly to blame. The RSF has blamed the action on rogue actors and denies causing harm to civilians in Sudan. Two RSF generals were named last week by a Security Council committee in the first U.N. sanctions levied during the ongoing conflict.

“Nineteen months into the war, both sides are committing egregious human rights violations, including the widespread rape of women and girls,” Britain’s U.N. ambassador, Barbara Woodward, told reporters at the start of this month as Britain assumed the Security Council’s presidency for November.

“More than half the Sudanese population are experiencing severe food insecurity,” she said. “Despite this, the SAF and the RSF remain focussed on fighting each other and not the famine and suffering facing their country.”

According to diplomats, Britain wants to vote on the draft resolution as soon as possible. A resolution must receive nine votes or more to pass and not be vetoed by the United States, France, Britain, Russia, or China.

Nearly 25 million people, or half of Sudan’s population, require aid, according to the U.N., since 11 million people have abandoned their homes and famine has spread to displacement camps. Of those, around 3 million have departed for other nations.

In its draft language, Britain “demands that the warring parties immediately cease hostilities” and “demands that the Rapid Support Forces immediately halt its offensives” throughout Sudan.

It also “calls on the parties to the conflict to allow and facilitate the full, safe, rapid, and unhindered crossline and cross-border humanitarian access into and throughout Sudan.”

Additionally, the draft urges that assistance deliveries continue to be made through the Adre border crossing with Chad “and stresses the need to sustain humanitarian access through all border crossings, while humanitarian needs persist, and without impediments.”

Sudanese authorities have permitted the U.N. and relief organisations to enter Darfur through the Adre border crossing for three months, ending in mid-November.

Musings From Abroad

South Africa worry Trump’s victory might affect climate fight

Published

1 week ago

November 10, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

South Africa’s environment minister has expressed concern about the potential effects of Donald Trump’s victory on climate change negotiations.

The demise of Germany’s coalition government this week and Trump’s election coincide with COP29 negotiations to address global warming, which experts credit for this year’s devastating hurricanes, floods, and heatwaves.

“We are concerned about America because we don’t know what they’re going to do … how (it) is going to approach COP,” South African Environment Minister Dion George told Reuters.

“Mr. Trump said that he would withdraw from the Paris Agreement, but we don’t know what will happen,” George added in a telephone interview on Friday.

International partners are concerned that the prospect of an administration led by Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, will de-motivate poor and middle-income countries who want rich nations to shoulder more of its financial burden.

South Africa, which is one of the world’s top 15 greenhouse gas emitters and accounts for 30% of the continent’s emissions, has accepted $11.6 billion from rich nations, mainly in loans, for a switch from coal to renewable energy.

This is seen as a potential model for other ‘Global South’ countries who say financing pledges of $100 billion, which took years to come through, are insufficient.

“It’s certainly not enough. We need another target,” George said. “But then the question is: as the voter base is shifting in developed economies, are they actually going to pay it?”

The South African minister said he had been reassured by German officials that Europe’s stance at the COP29 climate talks will not be hurt by Berlin’s political crisis.

George said that Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s state secretary for international climate action, had contacted him to say it will be up to the European Union to maintain leadership.

“Their position is not changed and that is how they will approach COP,” George said, adding: “They’re on Team Europe. The European Union and German have clearly set out their objectives.”