Friday, February 8, 2008

The Kimberly Process


The Kimberley Process

What is the Kimberley Process?

The World Diamond Council has worked successfully with the United Nations, governments and groups such as Global Witness and Partnership Africa Canada to introduce a system for the certification of the source of uncut diamonds to prevent the trade in conflict diamonds. This system, known as the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), was formally adopted in November 2002, and came into operation on January 1, 2003. Andrew Coxon, President of the De Beers Institute of Diamonds, is a founding member of the World Diamond Council and spearheaded this initiative on behalf of the diamond industry.

How does the Kimberley Process work?

The KPCS requires participating governments to ensure that each shipment of rough diamonds exported be in a secure container and accompanied by a uniquely numbered, government-validated certificate stating that the diamonds are conflict-free. Over 45 countries participate, representing all the nations with significant involvement in the diamond trade. All 45 importing countries agree not to accept any rough diamonds without an approved Kimberley Process Certificate.
This was taken from the official DeBeers website.

My thoughts:

How effective is a piece of paper?

How truthful is our government? And other countries?

Do I believe this stopped anything?

Do you?


1 comment:

Liz Steiner said...

The Kimberly Process has given us piece of mind. We can now buy our diamonds guilt free, because we percieve that piece of paper garintees no one got hurt. Of course, we were all buying diamonds before the Kimberly Process. . .