The Global Blood Diamond Prohibition Regime

            For the past few decades, the sale of diamonds has been an invaluable asset to numerous anti-government rebel groups across Africa. These factions sell diamonds in exchange for money and weapons, facilitating wars and brutal acts of violence against civilians. The spilled blood resulting from the sale of these diamonds has led to the labeling of these stones as blood diamonds, and has subsequently become the focus of a global prohibition regime.

            Blood diamonds have been used to fuel conflicts since the civil war in Sierra Leone during the early 1990s. In this instance, leaders of the Revolutionary United Front, a rebel group trying to overthrow the government, gave diamonds to Liberian President Charles Taylor in exchange for weapons (Blood Diamond). As a result, the RUF carved a path of blood, tears, and semen through Sierra Leone, murdering and amputating innocent civilians, forcing children to become soldiers, and raping women. Throughout the 1990s, the use of diamonds to fuel similar conflicts was widespread in several African countries, including Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Blood Diamond).

            The global prohibition regime against blood diamonds fits nicely into the first four phases of the pattern established by Ethan Nadelmann that describes the evolution of most global prohibition regimes. The first stage of this pattern is when the activity is ubiquitous. At the start of the 1990s, the regime against blood diamonds was in the first stage, as countries all around the world engaged in the purchase of blood diamonds. However, it did not take long until this regime moved into its second stage, thanks to transnational civil society.

            During the second stage of Nadelmann’s pattern, “the activity is redefined as a problem and as an evil” (Nadelmann). In 1998, Global Witness became one of the first organizations to bring attention to the problem of blood diamonds by releasing a report detailing how diamonds had assisted a civil war in Angola. Eventually, “growing international pressure from Global Witness and other organizations played a crucial role in forcing governments and the diamond industry take action to eliminate conflict diamonds from the international trade” (Conflict Diamonds). Transnational civil society groups had set agendas, and the process of attempting to outlaw the sale of blood diamonds was well under way. By now, purchasing blood diamonds had certainly been defined as an illegitimate activity.

            According to Nadelmann, this acknowledgement of the evil of blood diamonds would be followed by the attempts of states to criminalize the activity. Indeed, it was not long after the release of Global Witness’s report on Angola that the United Nations Security Council had passed two resolutions banning the purchase of blood diamonds from Angola (Blood Diamonds). The success of global prohibition regimes often hinge on whether or not they receive support from powerful countries, and the fact that the global prohibition regime on blood diamonds began to collect support from some of the most powerful countries in the world, those of the UN Security Council, was significant.

            The UN did not stop with the passing of a few explicit Security Council resolutions, though, and the global blood diamond regime advanced to stage four.  This stage is significant because the activity in question is generally outlawed throughout the world and international institutions are established to coordinate the global response (Nadelmann). It did not take long until a formal international institution was established, once again through the help of transnational civil society. Meeting in Kimberley, South Africa in 2000, representatives from both the diamond industry and NGOs attempted to find a solution to the blood diamond issue (The Kimberley Process). The product, endorsed by the UN General Assembly and Security Council soon after, was The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KP).

            The KP seeks to stop the sale and purchase of blood diamonds by forcing all countries exporting diamonds to certify that their shipments were mined in conflict-free areas. Countries must “certify the origin of rough diamonds, and put in place effective controls to prevent conflict stones from entering the supply chain … and can only trade rough diamonds with other members” (The Kimberley Process). In the nearly ten years since its introduction at the start of 2003, the KP has been credited with stopping a respectable amount of blood diamonds from entering the market. Several countries have already been expelled and allowed to reenter once they have cleaned up their practices.

            Nadelmann’s stage five describes a condition in which the forbidden activity has been reduced to such an extent that it barely happens at all, and only on a small scale. In the case of the global blood diamond regime, it seems premature to claim that the sale of these stones has been reduced to this level. Regime leakage on a significant scale still exists in the world today, and the case can even be made that this regime has gone backwards in the past few years. Diamonds from countries not in the KP are constantly smuggled over the border and mixed into diamond shipments from countries that are in the KP. This has happened as recently as last year in the Ivory Coast (Violence). In addition, the KP has received a great deal of criticism by certifying governments like Zimbabwe who consistently infringe upon the human rights of miners, their most recent atrocity the killing of hundreds of mine workers in 2009 (Blood Diamonds). Furthermore, the KP has invited even more condemnation by continuing to certify diamonds from countries such as the Central African Republic whose profits are clearly funding rebel causes (Violence).

            The KP, as it is, is far from perfect. Recently, Global Witness, who was once an observer of the KP, left the organization in protest, claiming that it “has become an accomplice to diamond laundering – whereby dirty diamonds are mixed in with clean gems” (Global Witness). Many diamond selling states are too weak to stop blood diamonds from being mixed into their shipments. Furthermore, there are even some states that are willing to ignore blood diamonds for their own economic interests. Both of these severely undermine the KP, but the latter is exceedingly difficult to stop. If a few countries are not willing to halt a country’s diamonds from entering the market, as is currently the case in Zimbabwe, little can be done to improve the regime.

            If the global blood diamond regime is to perhaps one day enter the fifth stage, much reform will be needed. The Kimberley Process needs to improve its policing and broaden its goals. First and foremost, concerted efforts must be made to stop the smuggling of diamonds. If rebel groups in countries not part of the Kimberley Process are able to mix diamonds into the shipments of bordering countries that are part of the Kimberley Process, the entire process is undermined and rebel groups will continue their violent operations. Furthermore, the goal of the Kimberley Process must be broadened to stop diamonds coming from areas where miners suffer frequent violence as well as deplorable mine conditions. Diamond profits earned by governments like Zimbabwe provide money for conflict the same as profits earned by rebel groups and equivalently contribute to regime leakage. Better monitoring is also needed so it is clear when states are breaking the rules.  It seems overly optimistic, however, to expect anything to change until the structure of the Kimberley Process is modified. The process by which member states make decisions must be changed so that one state cannot block the will of the rest and the process can work as designed.

Works Cited

“Blood Diamond.” Wikipedia. 2012. 21 October 2012.

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Nadelmann, Ethan. “Global prohibition regimes: the evolution of norms in international society.” International Organization 44. World Peace Foundation, 1990. 21 October 2012.

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“Conflict Diamonds.” Global Witness. 2012. 21 October 2012

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“The Kimberley Process.” Global Witness. 2012. 21 October 2012.

<http://www.globalwitness.org/campaigns/conflict/conflict-diamonds/kimberley-process>

“Violence” Brilliant Earth. 2012. 21 October 2012.

<http://www.brilliantearth.com/confict-diamond-trade/>