Are there still conflict diamonds

The diamonds Russia is after are currently illegal to sell based on sanctions from the Kimberley Process that were issued in Russia becomes the rotating chair of the Kimberley Process this year.

Their plan is to bring a vote to remove the CAR restrictions. So far 39, carats form the Green Zones have successfully been registered and sold. If Russia succeeds in removing all the sanctions, the value of the diamonds in the country will skyrocket. Thankfully, the U. Many of the major diamond mining companies are labeling diamonds from Canada as conflict free. But we emphatically disagree.

Diamond mining is incredibly damaging to the environment. They are also finding the introduction of calcium and many other toxic chemicals from the mining process had a major effect on all aquatic life and all sections of the food chain. On land, native animal populations, such as grizzly bears and caribou, have seen a decline in numbers since the mine was established.

The tribe can not afford to spend that amount of money and worries about future access to the community. The most important thing you can do is research where to get a truly ethical jewelry. If conscious consumers demand that companies align with their values then maybe we can move the needle on the blood diamond trade.

Ask about the country of origin for the diamond, and remember that no diamond coming from the earth can be considered truly conflict free. Learn about eco-friendly lab grown diamonds. Your terms may vary and are subject to credit approval. Select 4 sample styles from our home try-on collection. Your package will ship and arrive within business days. Try on the rings, take photos and show them off to your friends and family.

There is no obligation to purchase. On the 7th day of your trial, ship your home try-on box back to us for free. You can build your chosen ring online at any time. Easy as that! Free U. Visit Us Contact Journal. View All Articles.

Next Article. The Kimberley Process. Once the original export from country of extraction has been made, a process of sorting, mixing and trading-on does take place. It has not been possible to ascertain what percentage of the annual production is traded in this way, and what percentage has a much more direct trading history up to being set in jewellery and sold to the public.

Global Witness recommends that this work be carried out, hopefully with the co-operation of key industry players including De Beers, sightholders, traders and manufacturers and invites information from any of these groups to complete this analysis. There are only a small number of brokers and their role is to liaise between the client and the CSO and to introduce new sightholders. They are paid a one per cent commission by the client on an ongoing basis. The polished goods are traded and sold on to jewellery manufacturers, or are set in jewellery by the polishing company.

The total timeframe from point of extraction to the final sale to the consumer is known as the pipeline. This appears to be shrinking from approx. There are around thirty countries worldwide where diamonds are cut, polished and processed into jewellery. Details are given below of a number of the main countries to give an indication of the scale of the business. It is not meant to be an exhaustive list. The industry provides an estimated , jobs. There are approx. Most of the companies employ a small workforce of less than 20 people, and in there were only 40 companies whose workforce was more than 40 people.

There is a small number of companies employing very large numbers of people. Israel exports approximately half of its diamonds to the USA. In it exported more polished diamonds, by value, than India and Belgium combined. There has since been some recovery, and the workforce has begun to increase. The diamond cutting industry of Thailand was badly affected by the Asian financial crisis of The industry employs about 5, people.

The USA is also a very important cutting centre, see section immediately below for further information. It is often described as the most skilled cutting centre because it polishes many of the larger very high quality diamonds, usually specialising in stones of 2 carats and over.

There are about manufacturers employing about cutters. The industry tends towards companies employing small numbers of polishers, with only a few companies having more than 20 polishers.

Also, a lot of the work is sub-contracted out to independent polishers. Some polishing is also carried out in other countries including Thailand and Mauritius as well as Israel and Antwerp. Although this tends to be for smaller stones of less than half a carat polished. The structure of the industry has altered somewhat in recent years with middlemen being forced out of business and diamond manufacturers working more closely with retailers, and increasingly being involved in selling finished jewellery to retailers directly.

In American jewellery sales not just diamond , as noted by Gemkey Magazine, accounted for approx. This trend looks set to continue. The importance of the American market can be understood by the fact that diamond exports form the largest product export category by value from Israel, India and Belgium. Asia and Arabia tend to prefer large diamonds of good quality, as does the US market and Japan.

Of particular concern are developments in the United Arab Emirates about which there is credible information of factories having been to set up to polish Unita and other conflict goods for which Indian cutters have been sought. A small number of banks specialise in diamond financing which requires very fast and short-term loans; the most well known is the specialist banking arm of the Dutch ABN Amro Bank.

To date, they have been very reluctant to take any actual measures on conflict goods, although recently there have been some indications that this is changing. Charting the changes in the worldwide diamond industry is a never-ending task. The industry seems to be permanently in the throes of some crisis or major change. The details of this review have been extensively covered in the media and the long-term implications will doubtless become clear in due course.

It is, however, true to say that this current period is a time of real change within the trade, and specialist observers are noting some changes which do seem to be of long-term importance and impact on the structure of the industry.

They point to the fact that the diamond trade is dynamic and responsive to change even if it takes a while to come to terms with the need for change. In August , B. The evolution of the industry, most visibly at the retail level, has accelerated to such a point that entire segments are at risk, often without the principals being adequately aware of changes afoot.

Maybe it has already begun? All components of the pipeline will be impacted. Linked to these changes are growing concerns within the industry about the impact that synthetic diamonds and sophisticated treatments such as heat treatments and laser infilling of imperfections, could have upon consumer confidence.

The industry has begun debates about how to tackle these problems because of the threat they pose to consumer confidence in the integrity of the industry and to the perceived value of natural diamonds.

The GIA has already talked of a passport for diamonds, and many have raised the need to find a way to ensure consumer confidence in the product. It would seem clear that these business considerations overlap with the ethical considerations over conflict diamonds and together form an overwhelming case for the industry to institute reforms to address these issues. This section examines some of the current ways in which diamonds have been studied.

These studies have primarily been carried out to increase understanding about the formation of diamonds as an aid to exploration and geological understanding, and not as a way of determining whether diamonds originated from one country or another as potential conflict goods. It clearly shows that it is possible to identify diamonds and that more research focusing on product audits and conflict diamonds is needed.

The first two methods described, studying surface features and profiling of mine production, are clearly of use and could be developed immediately to assist in any control scheme.

Some of the more technical methodologies, including mass spectrometry, need further research. Kimberlite and alluvial diamonds have the same crystalline structure but they have different surface characteristics.

The most well known is that many alluvial diamonds have a frosted surface as a result of abrasion during transport from the volcanic pipe. There are other surface features such as differing patterns of chips and scratches. When a diamond-bearing kimberlite or lamproite pipe reaches the surface of the Earth, it is subject to weathering and erosion, which results in the release of its diamonds.

The diamonds thus released can be transported for varying distances before they become concentrated into any one of a variety of secondary deposits. Such concentrations can remain close to the primary source and form deposits referred to as eluvial above a pipe or colluvial adjacent to a pipe , as at Mbuji-Mayi in DRC.

When greater distances are involved, alluvial stream-transported deposits are formed, such as those found in India, Brazil and Angola.

When diamonds are transported for even greater distances, to a marine environment, either onshore or offshore marine deposits can form, such as those in Namibia.

This holds good for example, with regard to the various occurrences in the vicinity of Kimberley, notwithstanding the fact that parcels from the principal mines may be distinguished even by a novice. As a precaution against illicit traffic, all diamonds purchased on the River Diggings have to be submitted to the experts of the Detective Department at Kimberley, whose powers of discrimination have come as an unpleasant surprise to quite a number of adepts in the gentle art of gem trans-plantation.

Thus, to a certain gentleman who would persist in finding typical Damaraland stones in his claim at Bloemhof; and to another bright individual who, in direct defiance of the fundamental law of hydrostatics which teaches us that water flows from a higher to a lower level, succeeded in extracting from Klipdam gravels quite a number of Koffyfontein diamonds. However it is possible that the issue of single stone identification the word here is used in terms of country of extraction rather than whether synthetic or treated has become a red herring; an attempt by some players in the diamond industry to divert attention away from the broader issue of controls on conflict goods and the well-established principle that a parcel of diamonds can, in many circumstances, be identified to country of extraction, or at the very least provide good grounds for doubt in cases of intentional mis-declaration of origin of goods.

It is of course true to say that a mixed parcel would be very difficult to identify, although this would depend on the nature of the diamonds being mixed and the rigour of the examination to which the parcel were subjected. The majority of such problem parcels would be alluvial goods from a small number of countries such as Sierra Leone, Angola, DRC, Liberia and would tend to be the higher-value goods.

In the last 16 months there has been a radical shift in international attitudes to conflict diamonds. Even the term is new. Prior to this point, it was well known, and widely reported, that diamonds from conflict areas such as Angola, Sierra Leone and Liberia were being sold on the open market and were being purchased by a wide range of companies. The CSO buys diamonds in substantial volumes on the open market, both in Africa and in the diamond centres, through its extensive network of buying offices, staffed by young diamond buyers often working in difficult conditions.

Purchases in reached record levels largely owing to the increased Angolan production. Angolan diamonds tend to be in the categories that are in demand, although in the main these buying activities are a mechanism to support the market. This is the first formal recognition that conflict goods are not acceptable to the end consumer, and a move that the rest of the trade needs to make. However, to be credible, De Beers needs to show how the guarantee will be independently audited.

Perhaps not surprisingly, governments moved before the commercial diamond industry began to shift. There was a fairly immediate understanding from a number of governments that the humanitarian and economic impacts of conflict funded or perpetuated by diamonds was simply too high a price.

Within the commercial trade there was initially considerable reluctance to face up to the scale or nature of the problem, however an increasing range of players have accepted the issue and are looking at ways forward. One of the essential jobs that we De Beers [sic] carry out worldwide is to ensure that diamonds coming onto the markets do not threaten the overall price structure and therefore although we have no direct relationship with Unita, there is no doubt that we buy many of those diamonds that emanate from the Unita-held areas in Angola, second-hand on the markets of Antwerp and Tel Aviv.

And as the diamond markets have weakened recently inaudible Whilst it is repeatedly stated by De Beers that they may never have directly purchased diamonds from Unita, this is a complete abdication of corporate responsibility, and it further raises the question of whom exactly the De Beers staff, who were based in DRC along the Angolan border, thought they were paying for the diamonds that flooded across that border up until the fall of Mobutu in Perhaps the answer is contained in their monthly field reports that detailed diamonds bought and monies spent?

Diamond traders, especially when talking off the record, are open about the fact that they can identify the country of origin of diamonds. Parcels of run-of-mine production are described as being relatively easy to identify, as are distinctive diamonds, especially in larger sizes.

One trader noted that mixing diamonds does make it difficult to be certain of origin, again, depending on the stones mixed, but that it would normally be likely to raise a question as to the origin of the diamonds. Even De Beers has admitted that it can identify specific production. Worldwide there are a small number of academic experts studying diamonds. Several of the leading experts work for, or are consultants to, De Beers.

Their expertise could be brought to bear upon the issue of identification in regard to conflict goods. De Beers itself has a GeoScience department that looks at a range of identification methodologies, mostly in terms of exploration, but also mine security. Indeed, the detailed briefing given to Global Witness in February , though very interesting in itself, was all the more so for what it did not say.

The team raised legitimate concerns about some of the methodology currently being used see section below but were clearly very sceptical about any possibilities for identification. They did not appear to have looked at the issue from a constructive point of view and this would seem to be a direct result of management policy. One independent expert is Dr. Jeff Harris of Glasgow University, who also works as a consultant for De Beers and has carried out detailed research on the surface features of diamonds, and on run-of-mine output.

His observational work on run-of-mine output for size and shape produces interestingly individual graphs see case study below. Harris has concluded that it is in principle possible to identify run-of-mine production using a combination of these techniques, and has further noted that some surface features are unique to particular production.

Detailed below are a number of different identification techniques which point to the capacity to identify the provenance of diamonds to a fairly significant level.

There is a wide variety of surface features, some of which are the result of the growth of the crystal, e. In Southern Africa numerous localities have one or more distinct surface textural feature or morphological peculiarity which allows them to be characterised.

It is clear that the numerous, and in many cases, individualistic surface features of different diamonds could be of immense use in identifying country and even mine of origin.

For example, Dr. Jeff Harris notes that there are 44 surface features for the dodecahedral, which, when coupled with observational analysis of run-of-mine production and known colour characteristics, could lead to a practical and relatively low-tech methodology to assist identification.

This coupled with an audit system that involved producer and importing countries would provide a practical and fairly immediate system of controls. Some interesting work has been done on surface features which clearly indicates the potential importance of such information.

It is not clear what work has been done by De Beers but it would be surprising if it had not looked at this issue. An expert diamond sorter can nearly always allocate any diamond put before him as coming from a particular mine or field, as there are peculiarities which definitely place a stone. In every production there are stones which perhaps would not be considered typical of a particular mine, but there is almost always some peculiarity in marking or colour which helps the sorter to decide.

It is, of course, sometimes difficult to decide about a single stone, but an average parcel of, say, carats from any mine or field would not present any difficulty to an expert to decide where it came from. Williams also looks at the issue of drainage systems and associated gravel-bearing deposits. This case study is included to give people who are not familiar with studies on surface features an understanding of the detailed level of research carried out on this subject.

In D. Grantham and J. The analysis of surface features was carried out by Grantham, who was a consulting geologist to Sierra Leone Selection Trust Ltd. This case study gives a clear indication of the potential value of detailed analysis of the surface features of diamonds. Cubic crystals are restricted to coated stones, and the dodecahedroids are relatively rare. Layers : plane-surfaced layers extending nearly to the crystal edges, usually very thin but sometimes stepped up abruptly in a series of terraces.

Plates : similar to above but not extending to the crystal edges. The triangular plates may be single or multiple, and can be symmetrically or irregularly placed. Shields : similar to plates, but with curved edges and often with curved surfaces roughly triangular in outline. The above growth features, which are depicted in Text-fig. Trigons are triangular pits, either pyramidal or flat bottomed, and occur where growth plates have not covered the whole surface.

None of the above growth features occurs on fully-coated stones. The great majority of the stones are colourless, although some variation is recognised in the trade. A slightly yellow tinge is common in plane-faced and layered stones; the plated and crinkled are usually pure white, but other colours are pearly white, yellow, pale brown, deep clove-brown and brownish black.

Striking lemon-coloured, curved-faced dodecahedroids occur occasionally. A small proportion of the diamonds, invariably good octahedral, have a pale leaf-green colour of unknown origin. More numerous are stones with occasional tiny green or dark-green spots immediately below the surface. Brilliant colourless inclusions in the diamonds have a high refractive index and often show crystal forms, but x-ray investigations are required to establish their identity. The black blocks are angular and may be granular or very irregular; exposed portions suggest they may consist of magnesium ilmenite.

Patches, or particulate spots, are another surface feature that is a subject of study. They are found in a range of colours including yellowish-brown and dark brown as well as green. Green and brown patches sometimes occur on the same diamond, 48 and are a distinguishing feature.

The information gathered can be used to analyse whether the diamonds originated from the same mantle source and it can also be used to try to understand the forces and dynamics involved after this point.

The measurements taken build up a observational profile of the diamond production. The paper, which is quoted extensively below, points to a useful technique for identification of mine production if one focuses upon events that happened to the diamonds after they were first formed.

This would include the study of the varying shape characteristics of the diamonds and of levels of plastic deformation. Jeff Harris notes that profiling of production has already been carried out for some official mines, including South Africa, Botswana, Australia and some unpublished data on Namibia.

In addition to this is the comparatively small volume percentage of production from the other diamond producing countries that would need to be done. It would seem probable that De Beers has profiled the production from its Williamson mine in Tanzania. In part, this dearth of knowledge arises because a single recovery plant serves all four mines and therefore diamonds from individual mines cannot generally be obtained.

In recent years, however, samples of diamonds have been recovered and accumulated from the individual mines for the purposes of mine valuations [an interesting pointer towards the need for mining companies to profile production] and it is from such samples that the comparisons of diamond characteristics reported here are compiled.

Valuation parcels from each of the four mines have been classified according to the scheme devised by Harris et al. With the second set of valuation parcels, the classification procedure only included variations of crystal habit and colour with diamond size, but this allowed comparisons to be made with the first set. However, in addition, a detailed shape breakdown of the irregular diamonds from this set was completed. This work determined the primary shape characteristics of the diamonds from Kimberley see Harris et al.

Inclusion abundances, primary crystal shapes, colours and UV variations provide information pertinent to the original growth environments of the Kimberley diamonds. The levels of plastic deformation and diamond shape characteristics, where irregular diamonds are a major category, provide insights into events which have affected the diamonds after their formation.

If diamonds from Kimberley are derived from a common source, results for the first group of studies should show close similarity. Excluding colour from further consideration because of the problems of reproducibility, the results from the three remaining studies all indicate a strong uniformity in characteristic between mines.

In the second group of studies, similarities between the mines are not necessarily to be expected, because these results relate to events which may influence each of the four kimberlites differently. For example, if plastic deformation of the Kimberley diamonds is caused by the dynamics associated with the separation of four kimberlites from a common reservoir in the upper mantle, then the stresses associated with such an event may well be different for the four kimberlites involved; hence, distinctive plastic deformation levels amongst the diamonds recovered from these kimberlites.

Similarly, differences in the rates at which the individual kimberlites move upwards or the number of magma pulses involved, could determine the final proportions of dodecahedral crystals derived from octahedra in a particular kimberlite. Also, the percentages of irregular usually broken diamonds at each of the mines will be strongly influenced by such factors as 1 differential expansion of syngenetic inclusions which may break the diamond, or 2 whether the kimberlite was associated with internal explosive brecciation during uplift, or 3 near the surface, whether the kimberlite eruption was phreatic.

From the results of these studies the bulk of the diamonds from the four Kimberley mines could well be derived from a single source. The primary characteristics of the diamonds are very similar.

Major differences in diamond characteristics between the mines relate to processes acting on the diamonds once they have formed, and these most probably occur in response to differences in the dynamics of the individual kimberlite eruptions.

In brief, inclusions are normally impurities of microscopic minerals and have been the subject of a considerable amount of study as they throw light upon the formation of the diamond and factors subsequent to this.

Harris and Gurney note that work on inclusions is being carried out at the mines listed above and elsewhere. Global Witness invites the various experts in this area to bring their collective expertise and knowledge to this issue, and perhaps to help build a database of such information.

This could be linked to the academic and commercial DIAKIM database currently under construction, which will compile information on world diamond occurrences and production from a very wide range of sources.

The concept of profiling the surface of a diamond using either x-rays or optical scanning as a way to fingerprint a diamond, relies on the principle that each diamond has unique characteristics and that the technology exists to record this. If there exists a technology that can fingerprint a diamond in its rough stage, and this fingerprint can be stored in a database to be recalled for comparison, then there exists a method by which to track the movement of rough diamonds, without the need to tag or otherwise mark them.

Surface profiling tends to be done as part of the process of evaluating rough diamonds. The aim of the evaluation process is to build a very detailed model of the rough diamond that becomes the basis on which a computer will calculate the different cutting options for the diamond.

Issues to bear in mind are the minimum size of diamonds that can be scanned, the speeds at which surface profiling can be done, and the transfer of the profile as stored information. This would require the movement of large amounts of data across computer networks. However, with the current advancements in data processing and transfer speeds, as witnessed in information technology industries everywhere, this does not seem to be an insurmountable barrier.

Sarin is an Israeli diamond technology company that has been a pioneer in the field of precise diamond measurements and grading, which changed the methodology for analysing the proportions of a diamond in preparation for cutting. The system is based on image processing, with the diamond being placed on a revolving disc in the path of a parallel beam of light.

A silhouette of the object is created and captured as an image on a computer. The diamond is continuously sampled in this way until the system using triangulation geometry software can recreate the 3D structure of the diamond. It was suggested by Global Witness, and agreed by a representative from Sarin, that designing such a workstation was a feasible option. Information derived from surface profiling must be stored on a database for the subsequent verification of stones.

Repeating the profiling scan allows the identification of diamonds by matching corresponding information held on a database. To overcome the issue of recognising the stones at different angles, software development would be necessary, though again this was discussed and was not considered to present a problem.

This information could also accompany parcels of diamonds in a CD-ROM format which could address this problem. The information could easily be encrypted and thus could not be read by anyone other than the intended recipient, such as customs, using widely available but secure encryption software. OctoNus is a Moscow State University-based company that develops software for the diamond industry at the stage of diamond manufacturing.

Its systems include those similar in purpose and methodology to the Sarin rough evaluation machines mentioned above. The developer of this application stated that the idea of the electronic passport for the diamond was raised from the problem of correspondence between a regular diamond certificate and the actual diamond. According to the designer of the system, Sergei Sivovolenko, there is no reliable and fast way to decide if the certificate corresponds to a given diamond.

Again, this is a technology that has the potential to be applied to a chain of custody. CT scanning is currently applied widely in medicine to diagnose the internal pathology of organs. Micro Tomography is principally the same technique as CT scans but is far more powerful, scanning with resolutions up to 8 microns.

The relevance of microtomography, in this instance, is not so much its internal analytical capacity, but because it can also be used to create a unique external profile of a diamond. Two scientists at the University of Antwerp have developed a miniaturised version of the medical CT scanner. They claim that their microtomograph is the only scanner that can be used to scan the external contour of a diamond at such a high resolution. It may be that such a high resolution is not needed though this needs to be examined in practice.

As yet, microtomography has not been optimised for surface scanning and further research and development would incur a reengineering to increase processing capabilities of the machines. In any case the developers of this application believe that their technology can be applied. However they raise the important issue of speed being central to applications being considered for use in an industry which works with very high units of goods.

Any method to determine reliably the origin of diamonds would be an important tool for diamond prospecting, industry security identifying stolen diamonds by mine and for helping to identify diamonds that have originated in conflict zones.

The pursuit of quantitative chemical data for the presence of trace elements within the diamond is not the intention of the fingerprinting technique described by Watling and his workers, it relies entirely upon the relationship between prescribed elements within the diamond.

The reliability of such a qualitative approach has been questioned, and it was stated by a leading expert in this field, Professor W. Griffin, who conducts analyses of diamonds using the same technology, that he would regard the qualitative approach as invalid and probably misleading.

The technique also rests on the existence of a representative database which has yet to be established. The RCMP are making contact with producing companies worldwide to seek their participation through the collection of data on the unique identifying feature characteristics of diamonds from their mines.

However, the RCMP remains cautious in its approach in terms of its expectations of what this technology might be able to offer. The ability of the science involved hinges on a representative database that has yet to be established. Validating the profiling process needs to be accomplished through application and not conjecture. The application is very complex, just as comparing the chemical signature of diamonds is very complex.

Of equal importance, it may be more conclusive that a sample did not come from a specific location. Also of relevance to the future prospects for this technology is that there is a major initiative currently underway at Curtin University, Australia, to establish a Cooperative Research Centre CRC in Forensic Science.

Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry LA ICP-MS involves vaporising a small sample of matter in this case a diamond with a laser, then subsequently analysing the trace impurities present in a diamond. The ablated sample is carried in a stream of inert gas, usually argon, into a high-temperature field.

This causes the dissociation of molecules and the ionisation of the resultant atoms. The ions are finally passed to a mass spectrometer detector where the ions are identified and quantified in terms of their mass and charge such that the relative intensities of the elements present are recorded. There are 26 countries currently producing diamonds.

In addition to this, diamonds are being prospected for in a number of countries. There are an estimated diamondiferous kimberlite deposits, of which 50 are being mined or have been mined already. Of these, 15 are large mines. Alluvial diamond occurrences are more difficult to estimate as the definition can vary from one diamond to a riverbed, although the total worldwide estimate is 4, The following are brief descriptions of the rough diamonds produced by, and the mining capacity of, the countries most affected by the export of conflict diamonds.

Mine type and production capacity: It is very difficult to establish the level of production, and figures and estimates vary greatly. Cuango stones are strong Capes, white and yellow and well defined. Sizes from 0. The diamonds from Laurimo are not good quality in comparison to other production in Angola. There are about diamondiferous kimberlite pipes, and of these possibly 5 to 10 large pipes could be economic to mine. At the moment only the Catoca kimberlite mine is active. In an estimated De Beers notes that they share characteristics with some Angolan stones.

This is because they are on the same river system, and a geologist has noted that there is a difference in the run-of-mine parcels due to the Tshikapa goods being further down river and hence one to two point sizes smaller on average than the Angolan goods.

Mine type and production: Predominantly alluvial, with some kimberlite. De Beers estimates production at , carats, which is quite a contrast to the , carats estimated by Terraconsult in There are also kimberlites in Koidu and Tongo areas but there are difficulties in mining.

The stones are clear and colours tend to be common white. This section presents a brief overview of customs procedures for countries with significant diamond interests. The overriding conclusion is that international legislative change is needed regarding the country of origin declarations for rough diamonds. Global Witness believes that the true country of extraction must be declared and not just the last country it was exported from if the issue of conflict diamonds is to be resolved.

There needs to be a comprehensive and detailed review of national and international legislation and trade agreements to determine a legislative basis for requiring country of extraction on import documents. Such a review is a major undertaking and is beyond the scope of this report. It is also not clear which is the best way to achieve such legislative change, for example it might be best done via a UN Security Council resolution that would oblige member states to take action.

Consideration should also be given to which government body should implement controls. The issue has largely faded from the spotlight in recent years, and wars that fueled the worst of the abuses across the African continent have mostly subsided.

Less than 20 years ago, human rights advocates hailed the Kimberley Process , where dozens of countries agreed to impose stiff requirements on diamond certification to ensure they were "conflict free," and prevent such stones from entering the pool of legitimate diamonds. Today, the overwhelming majority of the world's diamond supply comes from stable countries. However, experts warn that in a handful countries torn by civil strife like Liberia and Sierra Leone , the illicit minerals trade is alive and well — and funding the activities of violent dueling factions.

Alice Harle, an expert on minerals from the nonprofit organization Global Witness, told CNBC recently that the "conflict diamond problem has not gone away. Companies sourcing diamonds originating in countries like Central African Republic and Zimbabwe may risk indirectly supporting violence," she said via email. The majority of the world's diamonds, at least 80 percent by some estimates, are mined in areas where there are no human rights concerns.