United Nations Economic Commission on Africa

United Kingdom
Blood Diamonds

Background
Over the last half century, Africa has been in constant turmoil, as civil wars have occurred
in many countries all over the continent. Especially long and destructive civil wars have occurred
in the Ivory Coast, Angola, Nigeria, and many other countries. Africa has also been blessed and
cursed with a great wealth of natural resources; although these give African countries great
economic potential, it also creates a number of negative consequences; power struggles and
rushed infrastructure to name a few. However, one of the most influential issues over the past few
decades has been using minerals, most notably diamonds, and selling them to fund insurgencies
and rebellions; this practice is known as selling blood diamonds. Blood diamonds has affected
African nations from Sierra Leone, to Zimbabwe. In addition, some South American countries,
specifically Venezuela, also participate in the blood diamonds trade.
The practice of selling blood diamonds is thought to have originated in Angola, the site of one of
the longest and most deadly civil wars in recent memory. The war was caused by a power
struggle between the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the
Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). In order to finance the fight, the
UNITA began to sell diamonds, and then sell them in order to generate a profit. It is estimated
that over 3.72 billion US dollars were generated over a course of 6 years by the sell of blood
diamonds.
i

To this day, the sell of blood diamonds still takes place in many countries today. Often
overlooked are the acts of worker exploitation that degrades workers, who are often children. It is
estimated that about one million African diamond miners earn less than one dollar a day, a wage
far below the world poverty line of $1.25 a day.
ii
Not only do they earn meager wages, but they
also face dangerous and poor working conditions. They often lack common necessities of life, such
as clean water and basic sanitation. In addition, they often suffer from hunger, and most are
illiterate. Although diamonds are one of the most sought after minerals in the world, diamond
mining is a relatively unregulated trade, and therefore diamond workers are one of the poorest in
the world. In addition, often times these miners are working in dangerous conditions without
proper safety equipment. They also contribute to public health issues; diamond-mining towns
correlate with higher HIV/AIDS transmission rates due to the public sex trade. Malaria also
spreads in diamond mining towns due to still rainwater in diamond mining holes, optimal breeding
grounds for mosquitoes.
UN Action
Although many other countries insurgencies were partaking in the blood diamond trade,
the situation is Angola is believed to have had the most impact on the situation; the conflict in the
country has led to various UN resolutions, including UN Security Council Resolution 1173,
which affirmed the presence of the conflict diamond problem, which subsequently led to United
Nations Security Council resolution 1295
iii
, which tightened sanctions against the UNITA and its
supporters. However, the most influential document the UN has published has been the Fowler
Report, which depicted the situation in Angola with great detail, including the UNITAs actions
in terms of the sale of blood diamonds. In turn, the Fowler Report contained recommendations
that caused the passing of the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme, which today contains 45
nations all involved with the diamond trade. The process essentially places standards on shipping
and importing diamonds by ensuring that importers verify the diamonds origins, classifying size
and shape, and registering the diamonds value. In addition, the process encourages countries to
improve their own internal system regarding diamond regulation.

Policy
As a major importer of diamonds, the United Kingdom is very active in the fight against
conflict minerals and diamonds. We are participants of the Kimberly Process, and have created
the Government Diamond Office to regulate diamond trade in and out of the country. The office
is responsible to ensure the all diamond retailers and importers properly follow the regulations of
the Kimberly Process. In order to ensure the process is efficient and correct, the office works with
HM Revenue and Customs, the UK diamond industry. The office is responsible for issuing
Kimberly Certificates as well, which are necessary for importing rough diamonds.
iv

Despite these measures, according to Global Witness, the United Kingdom still must do
more in order to ensure that their businesses do not engage with conflict diamonds. The United
Kingdom operates on a voluntary system, meaning that auditing is only voluntary. Therefore,
Global Witness urges the UK to ensure greater transparency in the diamond pipeline; only 34% of
diamond retailers in the UK had processes that were beyond the minimum requirements of the
Kimberly Process.
v

Solutions
The United Kingdom recognizes that although the scope of conflict diamonds has
decreased, the issue still remains at large. Therefore, in order to hopefully eliminate the sale of
conflict diamonds, the United Kingdom proposes solutions including the implementation of
partnerships between corporations, governments, and non-governmental bodies, revising aspects
of the Kimberly Process by making mandatory rough diamond databases and governmental
organization and implementing proper importation control, and awareness programs.
First, we would like to implement trilateral partnerships in order to properly develop the
diamond industries of developing countries, whether or not they are known to export blood
diamonds. In order to do this, we would encourage the implementation of partnerships between
companies of developed countries and countries of developing countries that export diamonds in
order to properly develop the diamond-mining infrastructure and technology of the developing
nation. By doing so, we can place a legitimate company within the diamond reserves of the
developing nation, while improving the working conditions of those working in the industry. In
order to ensure that the private company is not exploiting the host country for its resources,
NGOs such as Global Witness will ensure that transparency is maintained throughout the
process.
Recently, the Kimberly Process has been criticized for being ineffective, for it does not
sufficiently guarantee that countries are buying conflict free diamonds. Therefore, it is imperative
that countries create databases of registered diamond, and that countries only import registered
diamonds. In order to do this, we would suggest implementing technology similar to the
Valinmark Diamond Watermark, in order to create a database of all registered diamonds.
Therefore, only diamonds that have the proper registration would be able to be imported and
exported. In order to ensure that countries only import registered diamonds, countries would only
be able to import diamonds with the proper watermark. In order to ensure that corruption does not
tarnish this process, we would call upon NGOs to oversee the process; such NGOs could
include Global Witness or the Diamond Development Initiative could oversee the process.
As a whole, the issue of blood diamonds is fairly unknown throughout the world; many
consumers are not aware that blood diamonds exist, and they certainly do not know where blood
diamonds originate. Therefore, as a solution for the developed world, we suggest running
awareness programs in jewelry stores in order to raise awareness about conflict diamonds and
conflict minerals.
With these solutions, Great Britain hopes to solve the blood diamond problem.

i
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/405514/UNITA
ii
http://www.brilliantearth.com/conflict-diamond-child-labor/
iii
http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/monthly-forecast/2006-
10/lookup_c_glKWLeMTIsG_b_2087355.php
iv
https://www.gov.uk/the-government-diamond-office

v
www.globalwitness.org/sites/.../gw_uk_survey_final.pdf