Kimberley Process

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Member states

The Kimberley Process is a complex system that is supposed to prevent the trade in so-called blood diamonds through state certificates of origin . Blood diamonds are smuggled diamonds that were used to finance various wars in Africa.

prehistory

The civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone , financed by illegally mined diamonds, highlighted the problem of blood diamonds in the 1990s. In 1998 the UN Security Council banned a rebel movement, the Angolan UNITA , from exporting diamonds in order to end the civil war in Angola . When it became apparent that UNITA was continuing to finance its war with diamonds, several diamond-producing countries from southern Africa met in May 2000 in the South African Kimberley to tackle the problem in principle. The Kimberley Process has been officially in force since 2003, which means that only those diamonds may be traded for which there are official certificates of origin from the respective country of origin.

Current status and further planning

In the meantime, 54 countries (the states of the European Union counted as one), including all African diamond producers, are participating in the Kimberley Process. An international committee has been set up to check whether the participating states issue the certificates correctly. In addition to numerous reports of corruption within the process and forged certificates, there are some obvious successes of the system. In the meantime, there are also considerations to expand the system with a positive thrust. It should not only move away from the “blood” or “war diamonds ”, but also towards peace diamonds, ie towards a system that also addresses social or ecological issues (“diamonds for development”).

Participating states or association of states

States and confederations of states participating in the Kimberley Process:

  1. Angola
  2. Armenia
  3. Australia
  4. Bangladesh
  5. Botswana
  6. Brazil
  7. People's Republic of China
  8. European Union
  9. Ghana
  10. Guinea
  11. Guyana
  12. India
  13. Indonesia
  14. Israel
  15. Japan
  16. Canada
  17. Democratic Republic of Congo
  18. Croatia
  19. Laos People's Democratic Republic
  20. Lesotho
  21. Lebanon
  22. Liberia
  23. Malaysia
  24. Mauritius
  25. Namibia
  26. New Zealand
  27. Norway
  28. Russian Federation
  29. Switzerland
  30. Sierra Leone
  31. Zimbabwe
  32. Singapore
  33. Sri Lanka
  34. South Africa
  35. Republic of Korea (South Korea)
  36. Tanzania
  37. Thailand
  38. Togo
  39. Turkey
  40. Ukraine
  41. United States
  42. Venezuela
  43. United Arab Emirates
  44. Vietnam
  45. Belarus
  46. Central African Republic

The Ivory Coast was embargoed until the end of 2010 for the illegal trade in diamonds.

criticism

But there are also critical voices about the Kimberley Process. The German aid organization Medico international criticizes the agreement because the controls are completely inadequate and also calls for the transnational companies involved in the diamond trade to be held accountable for repairing the war damage, for example in Sierra Leone and Angola.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ De Beers "The Kimberley Process" ( Memento of January 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) accessed October 31, 2011 (en).
  2. ↑ a b Participating States on the Kimberley Process website , accessed September 8, 2014.
  3. ↑ Kimberley Annual Meeting: Setback in Blood Diamonds . taz article, accessed June 17, 2010.
  4. ↑ Press release from medico.de , accessed on October 31, 2011.