The true cost of diamonds - Kimberley Process

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"Despite the progress made, three years after its establishment the KPCS has not been able to fully address, monitor and end the international trade in conflict diamonds”
Amnesty International, 21 June 2006

Participants to the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) met in Botswana in November 2006 to review how effective the KPCS has been to date in order to end the trade in conflict diamonds. In June 2006, Amnesty International had called on governments to use this opportunity to address issues of governance, enforcement and transparency that are crucial for the effectiveness and reliability of the scheme. Amnesty International believes that although some progress was made during the meeting, decisive action now needs to be taken by all participants to ensure that the KPCS evolves into an effective certification system that brings about an end to diamonds fuelling conflict.

Read Amnesty International’s update on the Kimberly Process Plenary Meeting and Recommendations to Participants

Read Amnesty International’s previous Position Paper of June 2006

Although many say the problem of conflict diamonds has now been solved, only in October 2006, a report of a UN Group of Experts on Cote d’Ivoire concluded that conflict diamonds from Cote D’Ivoire were infiltrating the legitimate diamond trade through Ghana, a Kimberley Process participant.

This report corroborates Amnesty International’s longstanding criticism that the KPCS was too weak to prevent the trade in conflict diamonds and that weak internal controls in any one participant state threatened the integrity of the entire system.

In a joint letter delivered to the Chair of the Kimberley Process, Amnesty International, Global Witness and other NGOs requested that Ghana voluntarily suspend all of its diamond exports until adequate controls could be put in place and, if Ghana refused to do so, that Ghana be suspended from the Kimberley Process.

Read the joint NGO letter


To many people, diamonds symbolize love, happiness or wealth. However, for many others, they mean conflict, misery and poverty. In some African countries, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, profits from the unregulated diamond trade are used to fund armed conflicts. As a result, tens of thousands of civilians have over the past years been killed or tortured and millions have been displaced.

International attention was focused on the issue after Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) raised concerns about human rights violations against civilians in the civil war in Sierra Leone in the 1990s. There, rebel forces of the Revolutionary United Front used the resources generated by their trade in rough diamonds to acquire weapons, with which they committed human rights violations. Earlier, rebel forces in Angola too used revenues from diamonds to commit human rights violations against Angolan civilians. UN sanctions sought to put an end to both conflicts (Resolutions 1173 and 1176 of 1998, and 1237 of 1999 pertain to Angola, and 1306 of July 2000 deals with Sierra Leone), by imposing sanctions on diamond trade. Later, the ban was extended to Liberia (Resolution 1343 of 2001), whose government was providing resources to the Revolutionary United Front, by allowing diamonds to be traded through Liberia. Conflict diamonds account for some four percent of the international diamond trade, but the impact of that trade has devastated communities in west and parts of south-west Africa.


Kimberley Process

On 1 December 2000, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution on the role of the trade in diamonds in fuelling conflict (A/RES/55/56). The resolution supported the creation of an international certification scheme in an attempt to break the link between the illicit trade in rough diamonds and mass human rights abuses associated with armed conflict. A civil society campaign brought international attention to the problem of conflict diamonds and put pressure on the international community to take action. The adoption of a UN Resolution and the imposition of UN sanctions related to armed conflicts in several African countries galvanized the international community and the diamond industry to put in place a certification process to prevent conflict diamonds from entering the legitimate trade. That process came to be called the "Kimberley Process".

The Kimberley Process brings together representatives of governments, the diamond industry and civil society. Since May 2000, Amnesty International together with other NGOs such as Global Witness, have been participating in the Kimberley Process. After lengthy negotiations over several years, the KPCS was adopted at a Ministerial Meeting in Interlaken, Switzerland in November 2002 and launched in January 2003.

The KPCS involves 45 governments, including all of the major diamond trading and producing countries. Despite the progress made, three years after its establishment, the KPCS has not been able to fully address, monitor and end the international trade in conflict diamonds.

Although Amnesty International has welcomed the initiative since its inception, it has also pointed out its weaknesses. In particular, Amnesty International has continuously raised concerns about the lack of an element critical to the credibility of the scheme: the need for governments to monitor and verify the diamond industry’s compliance with the KPCS.

A report by Amnesty International and Global Witness, "Deja vu - The diamond industry still failing to deliver on promises" reveals how retailers in the US and UK fail to live up to their promises to implement a system of self-regulation to prevent the trade in diamonds from conflict regions.


Further information

AI’s earlier press releases on the Kimberley Process:

• Kimberley Process still in process - Progress made, but key issues remain (30 April 2003)
• Kimberley process finally agrees membership list but lack of monitoring undermines credibility (31 July 2003)
• Conflict Diamonds - Kimberley Process at a Turning Point (28 October 2003)
• Scheme to end trade in conflict diamonds - Regular monitoring not agreed (31 October 2003)

Further information on the exploitation of diamonds and human rights violations in the DRC

Further information on Amnesty International's concerns regarding human rights violations in Sierra Leone

Links to other websites:

Action Aid
Oxfam International
Partnership Africa Canada
Global Witness
Fatal Transactions
World Vision
International Peace Information Service
UN Conflict Diamonds Website

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