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Learning Center  The Diamond Community Worldwide Transparency In The Diamond Sector
The Diamond Sector | Worldwide Transparency In The Diamond Sector | The world has been paying attention to the crisis in conflict diamonds for several years now. As early as April 18, 2000 UN called for enforcement of sanctions against Angola to take action against arms, petroleum, and diamond trade with UNITA. In July 2000, during the World Diamond Congress held in Antwerp the World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB) and the International Diamond Manufacturers Association (IDMA) adopted a joint resolution for an international control mechanism for rough diamonds. The diamond industry acknowledged the need to address the crisis and drafted drastic measures to stem the flow of conflict diamonds. During the congress a World Diamond Council was created to coordinate the industries actions. In December 2001 again adopted a resolution on its role in the conflict diamond crisis to help break the link between conflict diamond trade and armed conflict and continued to take actions with the latest being last December 2005 wherein the Security Council imposed sanctions against Ivory Coast. Then in January 2003 African governments and the diamond industry launched the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), which aimed to provide guarantees that the participating nations were not using diamonds as a means to finance local conflicts and wars. The Kimberly Process was launched to address the corruption in the diamond industry. It is part of the ongoing efforts of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) released in September 2002.
The Kimberly Process was the first genuine step that produced results in helping stem the flow of conflict diamonds. However, although the flow of diamonds has slowed, millions of dollars of conflict diamonds are still entering and circulating in the world market with up to an estimated 2 to 3 percent of the global trade in rough diamonds still coming from countries where their citizens live in harsh and brutal conditions. The reason for Kimberly Process'' lack of complete success could be, according to a report by the United States General Accounting Office done in 2002, that the Kimberley Process's proposal for an international diamond certification scheme… [does] not contain the controls necessary to ensure that it will be effective in stemming the flow of conflict diamonds. And that the process will only succeed with the reasonable participation of member countries and the industry itself. However, an assessment by Dr Sarah Wykes reveals that there still might be a problem with the participation of some of its 70 member countries, Angola specifically. She claims that although Angola is a member of the KPCS, internal controls in the diamond industry in Angola remain extremely weak, providing no assurances of the origin of diamonds mined informally, nor that they are conflict-free. There is also inadequate regular monitoring and auditing of the diamond industry. It seems that there might still be a lack of transparency. Amnesty International suggests that there should be greater transparency among participating nations and that third-party auditing measures should be taken to address the issue.
The industry is also to blame for lack of transparency. As Nicholas Shaxson said, Taken at face value, the industry has implemented some far-reaching changes in response to the campaign but, in the view of Global Witness, these fall far short of true self-regulation. One indication of the industry's ambivalence toward greater transparency is that, while it continues to hold information on who deals in conflict diamonds, it will not divulge any names. Until participating countries and companies dealing in the diamond industry choose to be completely transparent it is unlikely that the flow and circulation of conflict diamonds will completely stop. The problem may not be as rampant as before but it is still there.
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