The World Diamond Council (WDC) in 21st November expressed profound regret that a small number of Kimberley Process (KP) Participants blocked consensus on long-awaited reforms designed to strengthen protections for Africa’s diamond-mining communities.
For three years, the KP Review and Reform Committee worked on the most ambitious reform effort in more than two decades. That work brought the KP closer than ever to a modernized definition of “conflict diamonds” and to the explicit protection of mining communities.
Despite this unprecedented convergence, consensus was denied, not because the evidence was disputed, nor because alternatives were proposed, but because a few Participants chose politics over people.
“Progress was killed in pursuit of the impossible,” said Feriel Zerouki, President of the World Diamond Council. “Today, some signaled that the lives of diamond miners in Africa are not as valuable as lives elsewhere. They signaled that protection is a privilege, not a principle.”
A wide majority supported expanding the KP definition to include the modern forms of violence affecting mining regions today. The proposed reform package included:
· Extending the definition of conflict diamonds to cover violence carried out by armed groups beyond traditional rebel movements, including militias, mercenaries, organized criminal networks, private military and security companies, and other non-state actors.
· Explicitly recognizing diamond-mining communities within the KP’s mandate of protection.
· Adding armed conflict and systematic or widespread violence to the list of actions covered by the Kimberley Process.
These updates reflected international best practice. The research underpinning them – shared repeatedly over three years – was never challenged, nor was contrary evidence ever presented.
Despite the disappointment, the WDC reiterated its strong belief in the Kimberley Process as a global platform that remains indispensable.
“Today’s outcome is not a failure of the KP,” Ms. Zerouki said. “Most Participants stood firmly behind Africa. The setback came from a few, not from the Process itself. And while they halted progress today, they cannot halt the direction of travel.”
The WDC president called on all KP Participants to use this moment as a reminder that the KP’s vital work to protect diamond mining communities continues.
“Hope is not a strategy,” Ms. Zerouki said. “Hope must now become pressure, accountability and consequence. We will continue – relentlessly – to fight for a Kimberley Process worthy of the lives it is meant to protect.”