21 June 2010

The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme’s annual Intersessional Meeting commenced Monday in Tel Aviv. Some 200 delegates representing member nations as well as representatives from the industry and KP’s Civil Society Coalition have gathered for a three-day meeting in preparation for the KP Plenary Meeting, to be held November 1-4, 2010 in Jerusalem.

High on the agenda of the Intersessional Meeting is the progress of the Joint Work Plan (JWP), agreed upon at the last Plenary Meeting in Swakopmund, Namibia, in November 2009, for implementation of the KP minimum standards in the Marange area of Zimbabwe. A report by the special KP monitor to the Marange area, Abbey Chikane, is scheduled to be delivered during the meeting.

Israel’s Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer opened the morning session by welcoming all the international attendees to Israel and acknowledging Israel’s great honor at serving as this year’s KP Chair. He went on to recognize the challenges facing the KP, especially the challenge to maintain the delicate balance of having diamonds remain conflict-free while serving “as a legitimate tool to the economic growth of nations and the welfare of their people.”

Boaz Hirsch, Chairman of the KP, took to the podium next, welcoming the “massive turnout” of attendees and reiterating his commitment, as chair, “to the process and its spirit, to guard the fine equilibrium between, on the one hand, the production of rough diamonds and their contribution to the creation of prosperity, and on the other hand, defending the fundamental respect for human rights, as stated in the core documents of the Kimberley Process,” he said.

“This is the cornerstone of the moral and legal validity of the Kimberley Process. This is a responsibility shared by us all. We can only fulfill it, if all the parties to the Kimberley Process are allowed to operate in a free and autonomous manner. To that aim, we have to be continuously cognizant of the different contributions of the 3 pillars of this process – States, Civil Society and Industry, and what they each represent,” said Hirsch.

Addressing the subject of Zimbabwe, and especially the arrest of NGO Director Farai Maguwu, Hirsch said, “The events of the last days cannot be ignored. The arrest of an NGO representative, Mr. Farai Maguwu on June 3rd, for breach of Zimbabwe law, has created a whirlpool of negative emotions and high tensions among our participants, that threaten to deviate us from the agreed route towards an applicable solution in regard to exports of rough diamonds from Marange, with all the derived consequences. In this regard, difficult decisions await us that will affect the international diamond community, on all its various facets,” stressed Hirsch, who called on all participants to demonstrate “maturity and flexibility.”

Turning his attention away from Zimbabwe, Hirsch told the participants of Israel’s commitment to “jointly develop a vision for the Kimberley Process that focuses on capacity building.” To that end, Hirsch briefly described three initiatives aimed at consolidating and fortifying the efficiency of the KP. The first initiative is to fortify enforcement and border controls.

“We have reached out to the World Customs Organization (WCO) in order to revive the cooperation between us and them on issues of enforcement. In February this year, I met the Secretary General of the WCO, and together we established a joint working team to draft a multi-annual work plan for collaboration between our two organizations.” According to Hirsch, the WCO has already added the issue of illicit trade in rough diamonds to the list of only four subjects reported under the Customs Enforcement Network – CEN (the others being: IPR, anti-money laundering, drug smuggling, cigarettes smuggling).

The second initiative as described by Hirsch, involves establishing a permanent KP Office for Administration and Support. “Since my assumption of the role of Chair, I have learned that the KP is lacking in administrative capabilities and suffers from abrupt severing every year at the transition of the role of Chair from country to country. The absence of an organizational memory forces the incoming secretariat to build up its capacities from scratch. We would like to propose a creation of an Office for Administration and Support that will sustain the rotating position of Chair and will facilitate a smooth “changing of the guards” each year, as well as, serve as the institutional memory of the Kimberley Process,” said Hirsch.

The third initiative proposed by Hirsch is to create a Working Group on Trade Facilitation that will serve as a mediator in cases of disagreement that arise due to different interpretations of the KP procedures and result in substantive damages.

Papers detailing the three initiatives are circulating during the Intersessional Meeting on which Hirsch invited feedback.

To read Boaz Hirsch’s speech in its entirety, click here: