This content was first published on IGR – Italian Gemological Review no. 7 in 2019. The information provided here is therefore current as of the original publication date.
The economical development is now more important than the prevention of conflicts. This is the line of the Kimberley Process, the voluntary law launched 16 years ago to ban raw diamonds used to finance armed conflicts, evidenced during the 2019 Meeting of Mumbai dedicated to the KP Certification Scheme. As India was holding the rotating Chair, Alok Vardhan, General Director of Indian Foreign Trade, intervened on the issue: “The diamonds which were called ‘blood’ or ‘conflict’ diamonds are almost completely excluded from the global trade” – he claimed – “every rough diamond parcel is accompanied by a certificate confirming its non-conflict origin. Export and import procedures in most of the countries are subject to rigorous control”.
The implementation of the Kimberley Process procedures has not always been easy due to the porosity of the borders between many African producing countries. The application in those countries where strong investments by the big mining industry were made proved to be easier. However, despite the inevitable disputes, they evidenced an improvement in the general conditions of workers as the KP has introduced, for the first time, a cross-national regulation, valid for both importers and producers. And it is namely to the manufacturing countries that Stephane Fischler, President of the World Diamond Council, addresses when he says that “each government takes responsibility to ensure a chain of provenance, earning the trust of consumers wherever they are, and in so doing produce the revenues that must filter back to the grass roots of the mining communities”.
The aim for the future is to complete the passage from “conflict diamonds” to “peace diamonds”. After a struggle to avoid that diamonds became a financial source to arm factions in fratricidal wars, the new trend is based on the improvement of the conditions of the involved communities, on sustainability, transparence and on the practices of good governance. Such aims can be reached thanks to practices meant to improve the standards and the methods used to carry out the peer review, through the increase in representation and participation to processes, strengthening the collection and treatment of the data flow and appointing a permanent secretariat.
Gem News published on IGR – Italian Gemological Review #7, Summer 2019
