Musings From Abroad

UK/Rwanda migrant deal suffers setback after new parliamentary defeats

Published

8 months ago

March 21, 2024

The proposed bill which seeks to legalize the deportation of refugees to Rwanda by the British government might be delayed till next month after the upper house of parliament defeated the government and reinstated demands for greater protections.

Though court hurdles have so far prevented anyone from being transported to the East African nation, British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, has remained enthusiastic about the controversial measure with intentions to move thousands of asylum seekers who come to Britain each year on small, inflatable boats to live in Rwanda.

With the next election approaching and his Conservative Party badly behind in the polls, Sunak thinks the deportation planes will turn around the party’s fortunes. On Wednesday, the unelected members of the House of Lords—who are primarily composed of former government officials and politicians—voted once more to change the law to include additional protections for asylum seekers’ rights.

The Lords approved modifications mandating that ministers give “due regard to domestic and international law” and stating that Rwanda could only be deemed safe once a treaty with Britain was put into effect. The suggestion is that the bill will be returned to the House of Commons in an attempt to establish a compromise via the “parliamentary ping-pong” procedure.

Due to the ensuing back and forth, it is unlikely that the bill will be passed into law until at least the middle of the next month when parliament reconvenes after its Easter recess.

The agenda suffered a similar fate last year when a British higher court declared that the strategy was illegal due to the possibility that individuals sent there would be returned to their home countries, endangering their safety. To prevent such court challenges, the government is seeking to pass a statute designating Rwanda as a haven for asylum seekers and excluding certain provisions of human rights legislation.

Illegal immigrants from Africa and the Middle East have grown to be a significant worry for Europe in recent years. As of June 2023, a record 45,000 persons had flown in small boats across the English Channel.

Related Topics:Featured Rwanda Sudan United Kingdom

Click to comment

Musings From Abroad

UN Security Council deliberates stance on Sudan war

Published

2 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

5 days 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.”