Kimberley Process Certification Scheme - Working Procedure

Working Procedure

The working procedure of the KPCS is done by the Chair, elected on an annual basis at a plenary meeting. A Working Group on Monitoring, monitors each participant to ensure that it is implementing the scheme correctly. The Working Group reports to the Chair. Other working groups include the Technical Working Group (or Working Group of Diamond Experts) which reports on difficulties in implementation and proposed solutions, and the Statistics Working Group, which reports diamond trading data. The Participation Committee reports to the Chair on its recommendations on proposed members hoping to join the KPCS. The Selection Committee reports on its recommendations on who should be the next Vice-Chair. After a year of being Vice-Chair, the successful candidate becomes the Chair.

While the Process has been broadly welcomed by groups aiming to improve human rights in countries previously affected by conflict diamonds, such as Angola, some say it does not go far enough. For instance, Amnesty International says " welcome the Kimberley Process as an important step to dealing with the problem of conflict diamonds. But until the diamond trade is subject to mandatory, impartial monitoring, there is still no effective guarantee that all conflict diamonds will be identified and removed from the market." Canadian aid group One Sky (funded in part by the Canadian government) concurs with Amnesty's view saying "If effectively implemented, the Kimberley Process will ensure that diamonds cannot be used to finance war and atrocities... However, without a system of expert, independent and periodic reviews of all countries, the overall process remains open to abuse." The German group Medico International started together with other European NGOs the campaign Fatal Transactions on the financing of African conflicts through diamonds.

Another form of criticism by the African Diamond Council (ADC) is whether the Kimberley process is realistically enforceable. There are many factors that can jeopardize the "Officialdom of certificates and paperwork" from lack of enforcement on the ground to the secrecy in the diamond trading centers such as Antwerp.