KP focuses on reforms as Russia debate flops
Mbongeni Mguni | Monday June 27, 2022 06:00
Russia, the world’s largest producer of rough diamonds, is a member of the Kimberley Process, together with Ukraine and more than 80 others who comprise producing nations, major markets, industry bodies and civic society monitoring groups.
The two-decade-old Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, known commonly as 'the KP' is the world’s top anti-conflict diamonds organisation, backed by the United Nations through a resolution of its General Assembly.
Botswana, as chair of the KP for 2022, hosted an intersessional meeting in Kasane this week, where Monday was set aside for debate on the adoption of the agenda.
Ahead of the meeting, the United States (US), European Union (EU), Ukraine, and a leading non-governmental organisation had proposed including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on the agenda, a move blocked by Moscow, Belarus and, reportedly, the Central African Republic.
While the West has sanctioned Russian rough diamonds since that country invaded Ukraine in February, the stones are still flowing through the global diamond industry through Russo-neutral cutting and polishing centres such as India and China.
A debate on Russia at the KP could have resulted in a more global censure of Russian stones, cutting off a key revenue flow for Moscow.
Prior to the Kasane meeting, Russia and its allies had already raised objections to the inclusion of the invasion in the debate, which under the KP’s strict consensus rules, meant the matter would not be adopted onto the agenda, where a vote could take place on the action to take.
However, members were still allowed to debate the agenda adoption on Monday, where BusinessWeek is informed that heated discussions stretched for four hours from afternoon into the early evening.
“Russia was again backed by Belarus, and now China as well,” a KP member privy to the closed-door discussions told BusinessWeek. “Those asking for a discussion were numerous from civil society, Ukraine, EU, US, Australia, Canada, UK, Switzerland, Australia and Japan. “The chair made lots of efforts to find compromise on the agenda, but Russia played it hard and made it impossible to find a solution. “So the agenda was, after long negotiations, adopted without any discussion on the Ukraine war.”
KP chair Jacob Thamage told BusinessWeek that the organisation had agreed to work on the terms of reference for the reform agenda. Under its founding rules, the KP operates on a three-year reform cycle, which has been in place since 2006.
“We have to look at the reforms because these are due next year and we need to work on the terms of reference quickly so that these can be adopted and agreed to at the plenary set for November in Botswana,” he said. The issues expected to top the reform agenda include expanding the definition of conflict diamonds to include human rights violations by members. Since its establishment, the KP has defined conflict diamonds as those used by rebels to finance activities against legitimate governments, a description that would not cover Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In addition, changing the KP’s consensus process for decision-making is also expected to top the reform agenda, as it has stymied progress on any upgrading of the organisation’s mandate or activities over the years.
“Even with the terms of reference for the reform agenda, we will require consensus on them and it’s really a nightmare, but it has to be done,” Thamage told BusinessWeek.