Why the Kimberley Process is too important to fail

On the eve of its annual plenary meeting in Swakopmund, Namibia, all is not well in the Kimberley Process (KP), writes Charmian Gooch.

This pioneering scheme, established to eradicate the trade in conflict diamonds, is facing some of its toughest challenges yet. Despite international outrage, KP members have so far failed to act decisively in the face of Zimbabwe’s non-compliance with the scheme’s minimum standards and of grave human rights abuses committed in Zimbabwe’s Marange diamond fields, which resulted in the violent deaths of hundreds of miners.

The Kimberley Process, under the guidance of its Namibian chair, is at a crossroads: its participants must use the plenary meeting this week to decide which path to take. Reform is urgently needed to enable the scheme to fulfil its mandate, and member governments must stop wringing their hands and act to shake the process from its current inertia.

KP participants could decide at this week’s meeting to suspend Zimbabwe from importing or exporting rough diamonds for at least six months. This would allow Kimberley Process governments to assist the Zimbabwean authorities in reforming their ailing diamond sector and eradicating abuse, without compromising the standards of the process.

A precedent exists for this — in 2004 the Democratic Republic of Congo was expelled from the KP because Congo was exporting far more diamonds than it produced or imported legally and its continued participation in the KP was deemed a threat to the scheme’s integrity. After meeting a number of conditions for re-entry, the DRC was readmitted in 2007.

Governments could also opt for a politically motivated compromise that serves neither the interests of Zimbabwe nor the KP as a whole. It would serve the interests of a political elite and those often shady members of the diamond industry not committed to cleaning up the trade. It would do damage to legitimate companies and people in the diamond business who realise it’s in their long term interests to support an effective KP. It would also disappoint a huge coalition of civil society who campaigned for action on blood diamonds and have supported the scheme since its inception.

Most importantly, failure to suspend Zimbabwe would be a betrayal of the Zimbabwean people, who after decades of oppression deserve the chance to benefit from this potentially lucrative trade instead of suffering from it. The members of the Kimberley Process — governments who implement the scheme, but also observers from industry and civil society — must use this week’s meeting to work together to re-empower the KP to address issues of concern and redress instances of non-compliance. In particular, Zimbabwe’s neighbours must send a clear message that abuses will not be tolerated.

There is really only one thing that stands in the way of action being taken. Political will. The burning question of the week is this: are governments willing to take the tough decisions needed?

Second to this: does the structure of the KP, its management and decision making processes, enable them to do so quickly and effectively?

The answer to the first question remains to be seen. On the second, it is clear that reform of KP procedure will be vital to the future success of the scheme. From Côte d’Ivoire to Venezuela, from Guinea to the DRC, conflict diamonds and illicit diamonds are slipping through the net, with weak controls and poor implementation of the Kimberley Process jeopardising the scheme’s effectiveness and credibility.

Progress in these areas has often been held up by a slow and cumbersome decision making process, which gives a veto to each and every participant in the KP. The lack of an independent capacity for monitoring and statistical analysis, which would enable rapid follow-up to problems as they are identified, has also weakened the scheme.

The KP is too important to fail, especially for those countries who have fought hard to implement its standards and who rely on global trust in a clean diamond industry for the health and vitality of their economies. We cannot allow inaction on the part of governments to undermine the progress that has been made so far.

The decisions taken in the next week will have a lasting impact, both in Zimbabwe and in the KP as a whole. The world is watching. From workers in diamond mining communities to consumers on 5th Avenue, everyone wants to see if the KP can fulfil its promise.