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Conflict Diamond Expert, Ian Smillie, Walks Away from the Kimberley Process
By B. Earth | June 10, 2009
In the midst of frustration, Ian Smillie, one of the leading conflict diamond experts and key architect of the Kimberley Process, declared his resignation to the Kimberley Process members this past month, declaring the process ineffective. In an eloquently written letter, Smillie states: “when regulators fail to regulate, the systems they were designed to protect collapse.” He goes on to say: “I feel that I can no longer in good faith contribute to a pretense that failure is success, or to the kind of debates we have been reduced to.”
Over the years Smillie has consistently pointed out the failure of the Kimberley Process to meet controversial issues head on: “The Kimberley Process has been confronted by many challenges in the past five years, and it has failed to deal quickly or effectively with most of them: smuggling and fraud in Brazil, and issues of even greater importance in Côte d’Ivoire/Ghana, Guyana, Venezuela, Zimbabwe and now Guinea and Lebanon… in the case of Venezuela, we have effectively condoned diamond smuggling - the very thing we were established to prevent.”
In true form, Ian Smillie is still on the forefront of breaking conflict diamond issues to the masses. While the Kimberley Process has suffered much critique in the past six years, Smillie’s choice to resign has undeniably delivered the most cutting blow in its history. In denouncing the Kimberley Process’s ability to achieve its sole purpose of preventing diamonds from fueling conflict and human rights abuses, Smillie casts doubt on the diamond industry’s ability to reform itself.
We share Ian’s anxiety regarding the human rights abuses prevalent in the diamond industry and the influx of illicit and conflict diamonds still entering the market. Unfortunately, the Kimberley Process has done nothing to address the variety of human rights abuses that are not covered by its mandate including child labor, state sanctioned violence, worker exploitation, health & safety violations, and wages below subsistence rates. And even in the domain of diamond-financed civil war, there have been glaring gaps in the application and enforcement of Kimberley Process guidelines. We fear that the industry’s embrace of the Kimberley Process has significantly lessened the pressure to reform and solve these problems.
Despite the problems with the Kimberley Process, there are other ethical options for conscious consumers. Consumers should look for conflict-free and ethical origin diamonds that are independently tracked from the country and individual mine of origin to ensure high standards of social and environmental responsibility. Canadian diamonds remain a clear choice as are emerging programs for responsibly mined, cut, and polished stones from Namibia. These diamonds have been carefully traced to ensure environmentally responsible and fair labor practices throughout their chain of custody.
As the problems of the Kimberley Process have become more obvious and the traditional diamond industry has shown little initiative to broaden the scope of its reform efforts, the shaping of a responsible diamond industry is now in the hands of the conscious consumer who has the power to demand responsibly sourced jewelry products.
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