One of the main flaws in the process is that it will only define as conflict diamonds

…rough diamonds used by rebel movements or their allies to finance conflict aimed at undermining legitimate governments.

This means that diamonds crafted and polished in war-torn regions do not count.

One of the countries that benefits the most from this loophole is Israel.  The Boycott Israeli Diamonds campaign got in touch to ask us to share the issues with our readers. Researcher for the campaign, Seán Clinton says:

Every year, consumers the world over unwittingly spend billions of dollars on diamonds crafted in Israel, thereby helping to fund one of the world’s most protracted and contentious conflicts. Most people are unaware that Israel is one of the world’s leading producers of cut and polished diamonds.

There is currently no way of knowing whether the diamond in the engagement ring you’re admiring in your local jeweller’s window was cut and polished in Israel.

This is why the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign is calling for the introduction of a hallmark system for all diamonds which will inform consumers where they were manufactured, giving them the right to choose Israel-free diamonds.

Sign the petition

Urge the Kimberley Process to include all diamonds that fund human rights violations in their definition of conflict diamonds.

• Sign the petition here

Background to Israeli diamonds

Read more on Israel’s blood diamonds
Find out more about the Boycott Israeli Diamonds campaign

Katie

To welcome in 2011 we’re delighted to bring you a special offer from ethical jewellery designers, Ingle & Rhode.

Maybe you took advantage of the festivities to pop the question? Or maybe you were the one to say ‘yes’.

Either way, just quote “Ethical Weddings” to get 10% off a beautiful Ingle & Rhode engagement ring or wedding band before 31 January 2011.

Find out more about Ingle & Rhode

Katie

For more than a decade, informed consumers have known about the suffering caused by the trade in conflict diamonds.  The release of the movie Blood Diamond in 2006 meant that this awareness crossed over into the mainstream.

These days, most newly engaged couples have at least some interest in checking that their engagement ring hasn’t contributed to the problem.

Reassuring consumers

Since 2003, the Kimberley Process (KP) has been the main (and usually the only) reassurance available to consumers. A KP certificate would be issued by the government of a diamond-producing nation, and would state in effect that a specific batch of rough diamonds had been produced legitimately.

This was basically as far as it went, the KP never applied a track-and-trace service to specific cut-and-polished diamonds.

A flawed process

Though matters are now coming to a head, the problems with the KP have been apparent for some time. Firstly, it has always been extremely porous, desperately vulnerable to smuggling and administrative corruption.  That it applied to packages of rough diamonds only was another huge weakness. Once a rough stone was passed as Kimberley Certified, it would go for cutting and polishing before disappearing into the notoriously opaque wholesale diamond market.

On questioning a retailer, an interested consumer would struggle to learn which mine or even which country their stone had come from, merely that it had been ‘Kimberley Certified’ – a re-hash of the old assurance about ‘reputable suppliers’ that never meant much in the first place.

A convenient smokescreen

For some years now, NGOs such as Global Witness have been pointing out the gaping holes in the KP.

During this time, the only people pretending that the process was working were the exact same people who had a commercial incentive for perpetuating this myth – namely those diamond dealers and retailers who wanted to continue trading as they always had done, while using the KP as a convenient smokescreen behind which they could evade tricky questions from consumers.

The founders walk

In the last eighteen months, this sham has really started to unravel, as two of the most prominent men behind the formation of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) have walked out in disgust.

In 2009, Ian Smillie of Partnership Africa Canada (PAC) announced his departure –

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… The KP has been confronted by many challenges in the past five years, and it has failed to deal quickly or effectively with most of them…

There is a basic truth: when regulators fail to regulate, the systems they were designed to protect collapse. In this case, the diamond industry, which means so much to so many, is being ill served by what has become a complacent and almost completely ineffectual Kimberley Process.

Without a genuine wakeup call and the growth of some serious regulatory teeth, it leaves the industry exposed, vulnerable and perhaps, in the end, unworthy of protection.

In 2010, Smillie was followed by Martin Rappaport, another leading name behind the creation of the KPCS. For Rappapport, the final straw was the flow of diamonds onto the market from the Marange diamond fields in Zimbabwe.

Under the control of the Zimbabwean army, these diamonds are extracted and sold to fund a brutal military dictatorship and yet – as far as the KPCS is concerned – they don’t qualify as conflict diamonds. It was this absurdity that prompted Rappaport to denounce the system he had helped to establish –

The Kimberley Process is aiding and abetting severe human rights violations as it certifies, legalizes and legitimizes blood diamonds. Corrupt governments have turned the KP on its head. Instead of eliminating human rights violations, the KP is legitimizing them.

The diamond trade and consumers cannot trust the Kimberley Process, its system of warranties or those that promote the Kimberley Process as an assurance of the legitimate source of diamonds.

We must face the fact that the Kimberley Process is a politicized, government-controlled initiative that is incapable of eliminating human rights violations in the diamond sector.

Which way now for the ethical consumer?

So where does this leave ethically-minded consumers? Essentially, they are confronted with the same issue the diamond business has always presented: a lack of transparency in the supply chain.

Short of travelling to the source and buying a diamond directly, there are a couple of main ways around this.

1. Mine-free diamonds

One route is to avoid mined diamonds altogether, and to buy a synthetic or ‘cultured’ diamond created in a laboratory.

FOR
These stones are genuinely ‘conflict-free’, and avoid the environmental damage that inevitably results from mining.

AGAINST
The High Temperature High Pressure process by which they are created is hardly blameless environmentally.

They are not commercially available in white, so consumers are left choosing from a range of yellows, oranges and pinks.

Many engaged couples find the idea of a stone created in a laboratory less romantic than one produced millions of years ago within the earth’s crust.

2. Canadian diamonds

For those keen on a mined white diamond, the best bet probably lies in the frozen northwest of Canada. A small handful of Canadian diamond brands offer a full track-and-trace service on their stones (each cut and polished diamond is laser-inscribed with a unique tracking number, which consumers can enter into the relevant website to obtain the full history of their individual stone).

FOR
Unlike the Kimberley Process, this system isn’t porous – couples can obtain genuine peace of mind that their diamond is conflict-free, and wasn’t produced in dangerous or exploitative conditions.

AGAINST
We can’t ignore the environmental impact of the mines themselves. While diamond extraction doesn’t make widespread use of toxic chemicals (unlike gold mining for example), there is no denying that open cast mining creates a scar on the landscape.

ON BALANCE
Traceable Canadian diamonds are not ethically perfect, but right now they are probably the best option for couples who want a mined white diamond.

The search for an ethical diamond continues

The collapse of the Kimberley Process will re-open the debate about what it really means for a diamond to be ‘ethical’.

Whatever the long-term answer, it must surely involve genuine transparency and traceability in the supply chain. In this sense, the death of the Kimberley Process should be seen as a positive step – the lifting of a smokescreen that for too long has obscured a whole multitude of sins.

It’s just a shame that countless ethical consumers will now look at rings purchased over the last few years, and be left with nagging doubts about where their diamonds really came from.

David Rhode is a Director at Ingle & Rhode, a bespoke jeweller in London, specialising in engagement rings made with Canadian diamonds and fair trade gold.

Well, for now the answer is yes.  Mugabe had been threatening to sell the diamonds with or without certification but reached an agreement with the KP that two batches of the Marange diamonds could be sold between now and September with the KP’s approval.

In September, there will be another review of the situation in Marange.

However, Ethical Weddings supplier, Cred – the Fair Trade Jeweller, believes that this is a:

…missed opportunity for KP to become an ethical mark, where they could have expanded their definition of conflict to include human rights abuses.

Get Cred’s view on the Zimbabwe diamonds debate on their Fair Trade Jeweller blog.

Katie

NGOs have threatened to leave the KP if it fails to sever ties with Zimbabwe in the face of ongoing human rights abuses.

Today delegates from the KP are meeting in Israel and will decide whether to suspend Zimbabwe’s membership.

See Reuters’ report from earlier today: ‘Civil society urges action on Zimbabwe diamonds‘

Katie

Diamond mining is fueling conflict and contributing to political oppression and unspeakable human suffering, including rape, torture, murder, and forced labor.  Unfortunately, the response of the KP has proven far from adequate. Zimbabwean diamonds mined with complete disregard for basic human rights are currently being sold in jewelry stores with “conflict free” certification.

Several years ago, following the global outcry against blood diamonds that led to the KP, Brilliant Earth was founded to pioneer a new way of doing business in the jewelry industry. Our idea was simple: to offer high-quality jewelry that is ethical and beneficial for all involved. As a retailer, we feel passionate about—and even responsible for—creating a more humane diamond industry.

To further our consumer educational campaigns, we have launched a petition on Change.org to give individuals an easy and effective way to add their voice to the call for KP reform.

To show our support and encourage consumer action, we will donate a dollar to communities harmed by the jewelry trade for every new signature up to $10,000!

Sign the petition to lend your support to this campaign.

For more info on the problems with the Kimberley Process, take a look at the video Brilliant Earth has posted on YouTube: ‘Blood diamonds being labeled as “Conflict-Free”‘

We’d love to get your thoughts on the Kimberley Process and hear about your experiences trying to buy conflict-free diamonds.  Just leave a comment below.

Katie

That was 10 years ago. Since then NGOs and the jewellery industry have been knee-deep in debate on whether it works or not.  Forged certificates, diamonds smuggled to countries where they could be sold as ‘conflict-free’ and the scope to cover only rough diamonds not cut ones are just some of the issues.

The 21st Century Network has written a critique of the Kimberley Process and would love your comments. Read Ethics in the 21st Century Diamond Jewelry Industry (II/III): The Kimberley process and beyond and let them (and us!) know what you think.

Katie

According to petitioning organisation, Avaaz, 200 civilians have been murdered in the process and the profits from these dirty diamonds – which could end up in our engagement or wedding rings – will help fund the ongoing violent political conflict in this troubled country.

Official diamond regulators are due to meet in Namibia this week and will decide whether to suspend Zimbabwe and stop Mugabe selling his diamonds on the world market.

Avaaz is trying to get at least 100,000 signatures on a petition in the next 24 hours to deliver directly to Namibia and get the diamond regulators to stop the flow of these blood diamonds.

The petition reads:

Petition to global diamond regulator, the Kimberley Process:
Zimbabwe diamonds do not comply with Kimberley standards, nor can they be certified as “conflict-free”. We urge you to suspend Zimbabwe from the global diamond trade until the army pulls out of Marange, violence ends, abuses are investigated and Kimberley controls are upheld. Otherwise the Kimberley Process’s public credibility will be tarnished and the whole diamond industry will lose.

Sign the petition to ban Zimbabwe’s blood diamonds.

Katie

See also:

Conflict free diamonds

Free Greenland Ruby

Furore over fair trade gold

How to choose the right engagement ring?

Choosing a ring can be time consuming, expensive and stressful. So how do you find a deal that will leave both you and your fiancée smiling?

BUDGET:
An obvious starting point is to consider how much you want to spend. Traditionally, men have been expected to part with between one and two months salary. But the short answer is that you should invest as much as you feel you can realistically afford – it’s certainly not worth getting yourself into financial difficulties.

JEWELLER:
Make sure that you are dealing with a reputable retailer. They should be willing for you to examine their rings under a jeweller’s loupe, and should be more than happy to answer any technical questions that you might have.

You might want to consider only buying a diamond that comes with independent certification from a recognised laboratory. If a particular stone hasn’t been certified independently, your jeweller should have no objection to you getting it certified at your own expense before committing to purchase.

And remember you are entitled to ask your jeweller to prove to you exactly where his diamonds come from. If he or she is in any way unhelpful or evasive, perhaps think twice about buying.

DIAMONDS:
How do you choose the best diamond to suit your budget? At this point you will have to wade through a bit of technical jargon to make sure you get it right.

Carat Weight: Generally speaking, the bigger the diamond, the more valuable it is. Traditionally, men often bought one-carat stones for engagement rings, but it is perfectly acceptable to buy stones of less than a carat as prices go up exponentially with size.

TIP: A good quality stone of less than a carat may well represent better value for money.

Cut: The better the cut, the more effectively the stone will reflect and refract light. This is one area where it is not worth compromising. Budget permitting, try to choose a diamond with at least a ‘Good’ cut grade. The term cut can also be a reference to the stones shape, whether it is Round Brilliant, Princess, or some other fancy shape.

TIP: The Round Brilliant cut has been evolved over decades to maximize a diamond’s sparkle more than other cuts.

Colour: Very few diamonds are perfectly white; most have a natural hint of colour in them. Colour is graded from D down to Z. Ideally, you would aim for something in the range E-H, anything above ‘H’ will look white to the naked eye.

Clarity: Most diamonds have small imperfections or impurities trapped inside them, known as inclusions. Stones graded I1 and below contain inclusions that are visible with the naked eye. Ideally, you would aim for at least VS2 clarity, but if your budget is stretched you could consider dropping to SI clarity without it being a problem.

SETTINGS:
Most modern engagement rings are made from white metals with a solitaire diamond. But any information you have about your partner’s taste in jewellery is priceless. Do you have access to any other rings she has bought, or does she have a friend you can trust to advise you? Some jewellers will offer you an exchange for another ring of similar value.

TIP: You might choose to buy a loose diamond, which you can present to her at the moment you get engaged. Then the two of you can go shopping together, and she can pick a ring to set it in.

Finally, if you are reading this blog, you will know that there are significant ethical considerations to buying an engagement ring or wedding band. You can read about how we tackle these issues at Ingle & Rhode under our ethical jewellery policies or talk about them with other brides and grooms in the ethical engagement ring section of the Ethical Weddings Forum

Name: Tim Ingle and David Rhode

Location: Piccadilly, London

Tell us a bit about yourself and your business

We offer ethical fine jewellery – engagement rings and wedding bands whose provenance we can guarantee. Our gold is fairly traded and produced without cyanide or mercury, our diamonds are guaranteed conflict-free, and jewellery is made in the UK under British health and safety laws.

There is no child labour at any point in our supply chain, and unlike almost all other jewellers, we are completely transparent about where our materials come from.

What or who inspires you?

We source our gold from the EcoAndina Foundation in Argentina, whose role is to protect sustainable village life. They do this by supplying solar power to pump water, which makes local agriculture much more effective.

They also provide electricity to local villages, and help to provide hard currency though environmentally friendly mining projects.

The people who work for EcoAndina have dedicated their lives to their work, going to live in the middle of nowhere to help the local people – we find that very inspiring.

What do you enjoy most about running your business?

Most of our clients are in the process of getting engaged or married, and it’s nice to deal with people at these happy moments.

Also, it’s very satisfying to feel that we are doing work that has a positive social impact in the developing world.

What is the most challenging aspect?

It is important to challenge the misperception that being ethical means compromising on quality or on price – it really doesn’t.

What do you feel you bring to an ethical wedding?

The dress will be worn once, the cake will be eaten once, but wedding jewellery should last forever. It’s very important that it shouldn’t be tainted by the ethical problems that plague the conventional jewellery industry.

How do you see the wedding industry changing over the next five years (if at all)?

Increasingly, consumers are demanding that businesses act ethically, and there is no reason to think that this trend won’t continue. I’m very optimistic that the wedding industry will continue to change for the better.

Find out more about ethical jewellery designers, Ingle & Rhode

If you have any questions you’d like to put to Tim & David about gold, diamonds or ethical jewellery in general, please send them in!

Take care,

Katie
Chat about ethical engagement rings in the Ethical Weddings Forum