A/HRC/36/52 attempt to sidestep it in a study like the present one is untenable. This is particularly true as the majority of all illicit financial flows are related to cross-border tax transactions (see A/HRC/31/61, para. 5), while corruption-based outflows are a very small fraction of the total (see A/HRC/28/60 and Corr.1, para. 14). B. Estimates 10. Relying on trade data and balance of payments leakages for its December 2015 report, 8 the research and advocacy non-profit organization Global Financial Integrity estimated that in 2013, $1.1 trillion left developing countries in illicit financial outflows. This highly conservative estimate does not pick up movements of bulk cash, the mispricing of services or many types of money-laundering. 9 UNCTAD, meanwhile, endorses the estimate of the French NGO Comité catholique contre la faim et pour le dévelopment-Terre solidaire of €800 billion worth of illicit financial flows per annum. 10 Significantly, in its analysis of the three broad motivations driving illicit financial flows — crime, corruption and tax abuse — UNCTAD argues that “only about a third of total illicit financial flows represent criminal money, linked primarily to drugs, racketeering and terrorism. … [M]oney from corruption is estimated to amount to just 3 per cent. The third component, which accounts for the remaining two thirds of the total, refers to cross-border tax-related transactions, about half of which consists of transfer pricing through corporations.” 11 Comparatively, Global Financial Integrity estimates that trade misinvoicing accounts for 83.4 per cent of measurable illicit financial flows, on average. 12 ECA, on the other hand, estimates that the continent has lost more than $1 trillion in illicit financial flows in the last 50 years and continues to haemorrhage over $50 billion per annum. The figure is understood to be a conservative estimate due to, first, the lack of accurate data for all African countries and second, the fact that some forms of illicit financial flows — such as the proceeds of bribery and drugs/firearms and human trafficking — cannot be reliably assessed.13 III. Non-repatriation of illicit financial flows: overview of the problem 11. The effective repatriation of looted assets to the countries of origin remains instrumental to the global effort to support development, good governance, the enjoyment of all human rights and the strengthening of the rule of law around the world. The nonreturn of such funds contributes immensely to the violation of human rights (including social and economic rights), especially in developing countries. However, numbers show that only a tiny portion of illicit funds transferred abroad is effectively returned to the countries of origin. In the period 2006-2012, the total amount of assets returned by OECD States represented 1.6 per cent of those that remained frozen. 14 Six years after the Arab 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Dev Kar and Joseph Spanjers, Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries: 2004-2013 (Global Financial Integrity, 2015). Available at http://www.gfintegrity.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/IFFUpdate_2015-Final-1.pdf. In its report, Global Financial Integrity estimated that developing and emerging countries lost $7.8 trillion during the period under study. Illicit financial flows grew at an average rate of 6.5 per cent per annum during this period and topped $1 trillion in 2011. The authors of the report justify the selection of the period 2004-2013 for analysis by pointing to the fact that that was the most recent 10-year period for which data were available (pp. vii and 5). See www.gfintegrity.org/issue/illicit-financial-flows/. UNCTAD, “Urgent global action needed to tackle tax avoidance”, 30 September 2014. Available at http://unctad.org/en/pages/newsdetails.aspx?OriginalVersionID=838&Sitemap_x0020_Taxonomy=C SO. UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report, 2014, p. 173. Kar and Spanjers, Illicit Financial Flows, p. 1. ECA, Illicit Financial Flows: Report of the High Level Panel, p. 15. Between 2006 and 2009, $277 million out of $1,225,000,000 frozen, and between 2010 and2012, $147.2 million out of $1,398,000,000 frozen. OECD, Illicit Financial Flows from Developing 5