What next for the Kimberley Process?

On Monday, CRED's Greg Valerio was one of the great and the good of the UK's diamond jewellery industry meeting at the Foreign Office to discuss the Kimberley Process (referred to as KP) and how it may be reformed to become credible again.

 

The main questions asked focused on the issue of Human Rights which is currently not accepted under the definition of 'conflict diamond'.


The outcome of the discussions was very positive, with all the parties agreeing that Human Rights should be included under the mandate for KP. It may sound obvious, but it is not quite as straight forward as that.


KP is an  intergovernmental process of which all the main diamond source, processing and consuming countries are members. So when countries who don't agree with the inclusion or definitions of Human Rights, the process can be complicated and slow - especially when these countries are where the majority of rough diamonds are taken to be cut & polished or jewellery is manufactured


Greg's own view on the process is that "the industry now needs to put pressure on countries that are opposed to Human Rights being a mandatory feature of the KP. These countries need to understand that by resisting their inclusion they are devaluing and ultimately undermining the future value of the diamond trade and their role within that trade"

CRED's policy on diamond sourcing is consistent with our gold policy, namely we insist on mine to market traceability and given the current confusion surrounding the KP, CRED have begun a review of all their sources to double check that our commitment to being the worlds leading ethical and fair trade jewellery company is being lived up to.