UK’s Foreign Policy Dilemma: Unfreezing Russian Assets and Rights of Nigerian Students
TheUnitedKingdom(UK)isagreatpowerandaPermanentMemberoftheUnitedNationsSecurityCouncil (UNSC).Moreimportant,theUKisalso,withotherfour PermanentMembersoftheUNSC,amemberofthe UNrecognisedNuclearWeaponsStatesallofwhich haveconstitutedthemselvesintoaninformalNuclear Club to which access by all aspiring nuclear states has been denied. The Nuclear Weapons States want exclusiveness of the club to be preserved, arguing that other Member States of the international community do not have the capacity to manage the radioactive effect of any nuclear incident. In other words, the UK, like others, wants to preserve its own national identity.
Infact,itwasmajorlybecauseoftheneedtounderscoretheBritish national identity that the UK opted out of the European Union. It is important to note here that the European Union began with the European Economic Community of Six, following the signing of the 25MarchTreatyofRome.ThesixcountrieswereFrance,Germany,Italy and the Benelux countries (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemburg). In 1961, the UK sought membership of the European Economic Community (EEC) but to no avail.With the exception of France who vetoed it, all others wanted the accession of the UK to the Rome Treaty. The way the British interpreted how they were mistreated by the French President, General Charles de Gaulle, created a sharp division between proponents and opponents of EEC membership.
With more diplomatic lobby at work, the UK was admitted on January 1, 1973. Hardly two years thereafter, the opposition to continued membership of the EEC increased. This prompted the holdingofaplebiscitein1975.Bychance,theproponentsofcontinued membershipwon.ThiswashowtheBritishmanagedtosustaintheir membership of the EEC. Major issues raising the need for separate British identity began to emerge following the transformation of the EEC to European Community (EC) and then to European Union (EU). The EEC started in 1958 with emphasis on working towards a Common Market.
Having an EU requires harmonisation of all development policies. TheEUwantsitsowncurrency,theEuro.TheBritishwanttomaintain their Pound Sterling. The exercise of the supranational authority of some EU institutions is contested by the British, seeing it as an erosion of their pride. This consideration again prompted a second plebiscite on 23rd June 2016. It is against this background that UK’s foreign policy dilemma should be explicated.
Unfreezing Russian Assets in the UK
UK’s foreign policy dilemma and challenges can be said to have been accentuated following Brexit. Recall that the outcome of the 1975 referendum revealed that there was 64% national turnout and that the target to secure a majority for winning was 12,951,598 votes. A majority vote of 8,908,508, which is 34.5% more than the votesofthosewhorejectedcontinuedmembershipoftheEuropean Community in 1975 was required. Besides, the Treaty of Lisbon was quickly signed by all EU members but the British hesitated in signing it. In this regard, Prime Minister David Cameron said, before the 2010 election, that he would hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Additionally, the 1993 Maastricht Treaty placed emphasis on a political Europe and was therefore considered the foundation of the European Union. All these cases point to Britain’s animosity and considerations to seek withdrawal from the EU.
In2016,51.9%votedinfavourofdiscontinuationofUK’smembership of the European Union. Since the withdrawal of membership from the EU, the United Kingdom has been faced with many foreign policychallenges,includingthemostrecentissueoffreezingRussian assets in the United Kingdom in light of which the Russian government has also given an ultimatum to the Government of the UK to defreeze Russian assets in the UK immediately. And perhaps more interestingly, there is also the current issue of the 2024 UK student visa rules among others. In this regard, while the policy attitude towards Russia is about how to freeze Russian assets, UK’s policy attitude towards Nigerian students in the UK expectedly as from 2024, is more about freezing the human rights of Nigerians than about concerns of net migration.
As regards the de-freezing of Russian assets in the UK, it has a European multilateral character. Even though the UK is no longer a
member of the European Union, the country appears to be joining the EU members in sanctioning Russia over what they prefer to call Russian invasion of Ukraine. In other words, it is not only the UK that has frozen Russian assets. Others include France with $71bn frozen assets,Japanwith$58bnfrozenRussianassets,Germanywith$55bn frozen assets, US with $38bn frozen assets, United Kingdom with $26bn frozen assets, Austria with $17bn and Canada with $16bn worth of frozen Russian assets.
One reason for the freezing of Russian assets in the UK is the consideration that Russia must pay compensation to Ukraine without which the Russian assets will remain frozen. In determining how much compensation would be required after the end of the war, the Council of Europe has established a digital register of damagescausedbyRussiatoinjureUkraineasthefirststeptowards international compensation mechanism for victims of the Russian aggression. In the thinking of the British, they do not expect direct payment of reparations to Ukraine. The British simply considered that Russian central bank assets should be retained as leverage for compensation. The assets have been estimated at $300billion (£243bn). The Russian central bank reserves are in G7 countries. £26bn of it is in the UK.
It is therefore not a surprise that the British Foreign Secretary, JamesCleverly,insistedfourdaysagothattheRussianassetsmustbe frozen. Without doubt, the expropriation of assets has the potential to create a precedent and also prompt counter-measures in the international financial system. Britain and the Council of Europe are both talking about freezing as distinct from attachment or seizure andstronglybelievethatfreezingisconsistentwithinternationallaw.
True,theattachmentofRussianassetsissignificantinitsimplication in many ways. First, it presumes that the Russians will eventually be defeated by theWest. Russian defeat is possible but it is still doubtful. ItcannotbutberidiculoustoexpectRussiatopayanycompensation if it is Russia that wins the war. For now, there is nothing to suggest that Russia has the potential to surrender or even voluntarily accept peace negotiations in which President Putin would accept to pay reparations.
Secondly, the immediate implication of seeking to freeze Russian assets is that the NATO is clearly saying that the declaration of aThird World War is in the making, that it is imminent and that the world should be prepared for a new change in continuity: change of actors but continuity of East-West confrontation. Unlike the SecondWorld WarinwhichtheSovietUnionwaspartoftheWesternAllies,engaging in battles against the Axis Powers (Germany, Japan, and Italy), the new World War in the making is likely, at least, to be comprised of newAxispowers,thatis,Russia,China,andNorthKorea,andpossibly includingtheUS-describedaxisofevilcountries.Theevilcountriesor the terrorist countries may be joined in solidarity to fight the United States in particular and by so doing supporting Russia. In this type of scenario, the battle fields cannot but be far away from Ukraine which will only become the epicentre.
Thirdly, the UK’s Russian asset freeze policy raises a controversial international law issue: attachment or seizure, on the one hand, and asset freeze, on the other. Professor of Public International Law at theUniversityofOxford,ProfessorAntoniosTzanakopoulos,toldthe Foreign Affairs Select Committee that‘we can freeze the assets as leverage–thatiswhatinternationallawdefinesasacounter-measure. The idea is that you breach the law causing pain to the wrong-doing states until they comply, so you can keep those measures in place, so longtheyareproportionate.Moreimportant,ProfessorTzanakopoulos reportedly also has it that‘the essence of a counter-measure is to induce the State to comply with the law…, as a result, the measure must be temporary and reversible. On this basis, a disposal or seizure of the assets as a punitive measure was explicitly not allowed in international law (Vide PatrickWintour,“UK to Keep Kremlin’s Assets frozen Until Russia Pays Compensation to Ukraine,”The Guardian (London), 25 May, 2013, 18.56 BST).
Additionally, Mr Andriy Koslin, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, told the Foreign Policy Select Committee that he preferred direct seizureofRussianassets,ratherthanfreezingofassetstocompelRussia to accept to pay reparation. In his eyes, the issue to be considered should be about less state immunity and more about justice. This Ukrainian position is quite interesting. The more interesting point here is that international law is said to allow for freezing of assets for as long as the act of freezing is proportionate. Ukraine favours seizure which is inconsistent with international law. Ukraine wants to engage in an act of illegality to make legitimate claims. This is precisely one major problem in international politics in which might is always considered as right.
Why should a sovereign state seek to punish another sovereign state when one basic rule of international relations is sovereign equality? There is no disputing the fact that the assets of Russia are sovereignincharacter.ThereisalsonodisputingthefactthatRussia’s sovereign assets are protected by sovereign immunity under public international law.Why should the Prosecutor General of Ukraine be talking about or insisting on seizure of Russian sovereign assets?
Fourthly,howmanycountriesinAfricawillgoalongwiththeWest in the event of a Third World War? Will the pro-Russia countries support the West? France is already losing her grips over Francophone Africa, especially with Guinea, Mali and Burkina Faso accepting the pro-Vladimir PutinWagner mercenaries to fight on their sides in the war against terrorism in the Sahel. They have already compelled France to withdraw her troops in their countries. For France, Russia is an enemy not to be accommodated in former French colonies. Will Anglophone and Lusophone Africa take side in the war or abstain? Many questions but few answers: the conditions of a new World War to be provoked by the Europeans again are most likely to be different.UsingAfricaasaninstrumentofthewarmaybefar-fetched. Africa has rejected its being used solely as a source of raw materials for developing Europe.
The 2024 UK Student Visa Rules
The UK Government announced a new policy on international students that takes effect from January 2024. Many people believe that the new policy might have been a resultant from an interview granted by a Nigerian in the UK according to which many Nigerians comingtotheUKarenotreallycomingtostudybuttousethepretext of studying as a means of escaping Nigeria and settling down as a landed immigrant in the UK. To a great extent, a closer look at the underlying five pillars of the new policy clearly lends credence to the speculations of Nigerians.
Thefivepillarsarenoteworthy:preventionofinternationalstudents from bringing dependants with them unless the students are in post-graduate programmes with a research focus; curbing net migration; international students are allowed 2-3 years after their studiestoremainintheUKundertheGraduateRule,meaningthatthe Graduate Route will not be constrained by immigration regulations; non-permissiontoswitchtotheSkilledWorkerRouteuntilcompletion oftheireducationalprogrammes;anddeterringunscrupulousagents from sending student to the UK. The UK Government also makes it clear that there is no intention of hostility and that the position of Government on international students is a good illustration of Government’s policy stand.