Global Witness has decided to depart from the Kimberely Process. The human rights watchdog made the decision on Monday and cited an outdated approach by the program to certify diamond exports as the reason for this decision.
The watchdog said that they objected in particular to the decision made by the Kimberly Process regarding the diamond sales approval of the Marange field diamonds from Zimbabwe. They said that the decision made in November did not address the human rights abuses in the trade of rough diamonds.
Annie Dunnebacke, a campaigner at Global Witness said that the diamond industry has a notion that it's clean, of the Kimberly process. She added that it needed a rebrand because it was not weeding out blood diamonds.
The Founding Director Chairman of Global Witness said that the scheme had failed three tests. It failed to deal with the trade in conflict diamonds from Cote d'Ivoire, was unwilling to take serious action in the face of blatant breaches of the rules over a number of years by Venezuela and has proved unwilling to stop diamonds fueling corruption and violence in Zimbabwe.
Chairman Gooch added that despite intensive efforts over many years by a coalition of non-government organizations, the scheme’s main flaws and loopholes have not been fixed and most of the governments that run the scheme continue to show no interest in reform.
Martin Rapaport, chairman of Rapaport Group and one of the writers of the Kimberley Process on the other hand argues that the human rights were specifically excluded because governments said they wouldn't support it. Whatever the reason, Global Witness is now no longer a part of the Kimberly Process.