In the News
« Previous EntriesBrilliant Earth Wedding Rings Featured in “Today” Show Contest
Wednesday, August 25th, 2010This morning, the “Today” show on NBC dedicated a minute of its broadcast to introducing Brilliant Earth wedding rings to a national audience. The popular morning show has chosen Brilliant Earth to participate in its annual weddings series, in which viewers help plan a wedding for one lucky couple. Over the next five days, the [...]
Financial Overhaul Bill Takes Aim at Dirty Gold
Wednesday, August 18th, 2010The financial regulatory bill signed into law by President Obama last month primarily aims to overhaul the guidelines that govern Wall Street. While we will leave it to the political pundits and the economists to provide commentary on the bill’s implications for the U.S. financial system, we would like to highlight a little-noted provision [...]
Campbell Testimony Puts Blood Diamonds Back in News
Thursday, August 12th, 2010If former Liberian president Charles Taylor is jailed for crimes against humanity, he will not be able to pin it on British supermodel Naomi Campbell. Last week, Campbell testified at Taylor’s trial in The Hague, Netherlands. Prosecutors are trying to prove that Taylor used revenue from rough diamond sales to help finance a brutal, 11-year [...]
Kimberley Process Approves Marange Exports
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010Countries belonging to the Kimberley Process, the international system designed to stop the trade in conflict diamonds, have been deliberating for more than a month over whether to allow Zimbabwe to export diamonds from valuable diamond fields in the Marange region of eastern Zimbabwe. The issue, in the broadest terms, was whether the international community [...]
Supermodel Resists Testifying at Blood Diamond Trial
Thursday, July 8th, 2010Supermodel Naomi Campbell has been subpoenaed to testify at the trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who is accused of using blood diamonds to help finance a brutal, decade-long civil war in Sierra Leone that ended in 2002. Campbell, who has said publicly that she “does not want to be involved in the case,” [...]
Farai Maguwu, Human Rights Advocate, Imprisoned by Zimbabwean Authorities
Monday, June 21st, 2010To advance Brilliant Earth’s social mission, we work closely with non-profit organizations in diamond-rich developing countries. Although we have always greatly admired the people who staff and lead these organizations, we recently were reminded that their work can be dangerous—and that at any time, they can be called upon to exhibit extraordinary courage.
Diamond Smuggling from Zimbabwe Forces Acknowledgment of KP Failures
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010So far, in dealing with Zimbabwe’s shocking human rights violations, the approach of the Kimberley Process (KP) has been threefold: minimize Zimbabwe’s actions, slap the Zimbabwean government ever so lightly on the wrists, and then hope for the best. Now it appears that this wishful approach has backfired—and that the jewelry industry, running for cover, [...]
Jewelry Industry Retains Ability to Exploit Precious Corals
Thursday, April 8th, 2010Jewelry producers have escaped an international measure that would have limited their ability to make jewelry out of red and pink corals. Environmentalists had been seeking to protect the corals, a building block of the ocean ecosystem, under a treaty known as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and [...]
Fair Trade Gold Takes a Leap Forward
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010A hugely important milestone has been reached in the effort to create a supply of fair trade certified gold. Thanks to a promising new initiative announced recently, thousands of artisanal gold miners in developing countries will soon be able to sell their gold under a new, fair trade labeling system, a partnership between the [...]
Mugabe to Kimberley Process: Don’t Try to Stop Us
Thursday, March 25th, 2010As a South African monitor arrives in Zimbabwe to assess the human rights situation, a decisive moment looms for the Kimberley Process (KP), the international diamond certification scheme whose supposed purpose is to combat the problem of conflict diamonds. The options for the KP are becoming starker: either bow down to Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s corrupt [...]
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