Extractive Industries
Illicit diamond flows: Kimberley process
Loopholes in the the Kimberley Process
Authors:
; Global Witness
Publisher:
Partnership Africa Canada , 2007
The Kimberley Process (KP) was originally established to tackle the problem of ’conflict diamonds’. The paper points out, however, that the Kimberley Process may have to stretch beyond conflict diamonds to include all rough diamonds in order to be an effective mechanisms, as there are currently too many loopholes in the system.
This short paper finds that the internal controls in some KP participating countries are not working well enough. They also demonstrate that government oversight of the diamond industry is weak and enforcement measures to verify industry compliance are inadequate.
Recommendations include:
- in order to respond more decisively to serious problems, the KP urgently requires suspension mechanism that would temporarily suspend a country with significant compliance issues from the KP until the problem has been rectified; clear criteria should be developed for invoking the suspension mechanism which should not require the participant to go through a full re-application process when the problem is solved
- stronger enforcement measures should form a basic part of each participant’s internal controls and should be added to the KP certification scheme minimum standards
- KP needs a capacity to research issues related to better compliance and to assist the chair and working groups in improving compliance
- KP participating countries should make much greater efforts to crack down on smuggling; more regional and global coordination is needed among law enforcement agencies to combat smuggling, and the legitimate industry must work much more proactively with intelligence units and government to provide information on illicit traders.
