Friday, May 9, 2008

The Kimberley Process

In 2003, the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme was devised. It’s a U.N. sponsored trade agreement that is required of diamonds crossing international boarders. It consists of a set of forms and regulations for countries exporting diamonds. The diamonds need to be in tamper resistant containers with government validated Kimberley certificates.
In theory the diamonds are supposed to be traceable from the point of origin to their final destination in a store. It potentially gives stores a warranty that states all diamonds sold under the Kimberly process were not sold to fund conflict. Today more than 70 countries use the Kimberley process.
In 2002 legal Sierra Leone diamond exports were $26 million and in 2005 that number had risen to $142 million. Now of course this can be attributed mainly because the civil wars that were funded by the diamonds are over. But nonetheless these numbers are improvements and today less than 1% of the diamonds sold are conflict diamonds.
But does the Kimberly system work?
The Kimberley process countries are supposed to institute internal controls to keep illegal diamonds from entering the system. T here is no way, even with the Kimberley process and a formal system of checking and rechecking that will account for every diamond mined especially when most of the miners are independent non-licensed miners, who mine with a shovel and a sieve out on a river. Despite the potential flaws the Kimberley process is overall beneficial.
But, some are worried that the diamond funded war could happen again. In countries that have access to diamonds it is not hard to fund a revolution and is a tempting source of income.

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