A/HRC/33/54 29. In fact, statistics show that lawsuits and attempted attachments are increasingly becoming a common way of solving sovereign debt disputes, entailing costly and protracted judicial processes for the State that has defaulted.30 The trend has grown since the 1990s, from 10 to almost 50 per cent of such disputes. In the period 1976-2010 there were about 120 lawsuits against 26 defaulting countries in the United States and the United Kingdom alone.31 The high rate of success (72 per cent) certainly encourages this worrying tendency.32 30. Accounting for 79 and 27 creditor lawsuits respectively, Latin American and African countries are among the most affected. Over the past few years, litigation against HIPCs has reached a plateau. Although most lawsuits are now filed against middle-income countries, nearly 30 per cent of all lawsuits have been launched against HIPCs.33 In March 2016, at least 13 cases were still outstanding against eight such countries.34 31. With an average of eight cases being filed per year, Africa has been by far the most harassed region. According to IMF reports, claims by vulture funds constitute between 12 and 13 per cent of African countries’ GDP. African countries have the lowest rate of winning cases and have disbursed more than 70 per cent of the nearly $1 billion dollars awarded to vulture funds as a result of lawsuits.35 32. In 2008 the African Development Bank established the African Legal Support Facility with the aim of providing legal assistance and advice on how to tackle the activities of vulture funds and disincentivize creditors from pursuing debt litigation against African countries.36 As of January 2016, the agreement establishing this international organization had been signed by a total of 52 African and other States, including Belgium, Brazil, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, and 7 international organizations.37 33. Also with a view to minimizing future creditor lawsuits, a “HIPC Legal Clinic” was established in 2006 by the Commonwealth Secretariat to assist sovereign debtor States to face creditor litigation and in the negotiation and renegotiation of foreign debt.38 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 10 Schumacher, “Sovereign defaults in court”, p. 2. The study concludes that “creditors can retaliate against defaults via legal means” and by “throwing sand in the wheels” of the economy of defaulting countries. Ibid., pp. 1 and 4. This number does not include litigation resulting from bilateral investment treaties or before international arbitration bodies, which are increasingly being used by vulture funds to deploy their strategies. IMF, Factsheet: Debt Relief Under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, 8 April 2016. Currently, 39 States are classified as HIPCs, i.e., countries with high poverty levels that are eligible for financial assistance from IMF and the World Bank. IMF, ‘Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative and Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) – Statistical Update, March 2016, p. 46. Ibid.; see also African Legal Support Facility, Medium Term Strategy 2013-2017, adopted on 29 May 2012, p. 10. Available from alsf.afdb.org/sites/default/files/resources/ ALSF_MTS%20%281%29%20copy.pdf. The Management Board approved supporting the first case involving vulture fund litigation against the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2010. African Legal Support Facility, Medium Term Strategy 2013-2017, p. 10. See alsf.afdb.org/basic/members. Ministerial statement adopted at the Commonwealth HIPC Ministerial Forum of the Commonwealth Secretariat, held in Washington, D.C. on 12 April 2007.