This past Friday, JCK senior editor Rob Bates wrote a blog post exploring the possibilities and pitfalls facing the Kimberley Process in 2012. Rob’s post not only opens up more conversation on one of the most important issues in the jewelry industry today, but also adds to more than a decade’s worth of coverage of blood diamonds in our magazine and on our website.

I put together this compilation to give both new and current members of the industry a starting point in understanding the issues involving conflict diamonds. For more comprehensive information in the future, one can do no better than to follow Bates’ blog Cutting Remarks. 

3 Quotes About the Kimberley Process

• “I think diamonds are probably better than most extractive industries when it comes to Africa. When you look at oil or uranium, they don’t have a Kimberley Process,” said Russell Simmons in JCK in June 2008. “Today, the question is not whether a diamond is a conflict diamond. To me, a conflict diamond is a diamond that comes out of the ground and the people don’t benefit.”
• “Anything the industry has done has been little compared to how much it has benefited,” said Blood Diamond director Edward Zwick in JCK in June 2007. “Indeed, there needs to be more done and it needs to be not just toward Botswana and South Africa, but throughout Africa. There were a lot of proposals discussed and talk is important, but talk is cheap and it will be interesting to see from afar what is created or acted upon.”
• “Right now, there are a lot of caveats and hurdles to getting a review mission under way,” Ian Smillie of the nongovernmental organization Partnership Africa Canada said in JCK in June 2002. “If what you want is a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, you can’t do that without a Good Housekeeping Institute. Otherwise, it’s really just governments and companies promising to do better, and after 10 years and billions of dollars in conflict diamonds, promises really aren’t enough.”

Top 10 Kimberley Process Stories From the Past Year:

• The Kimberley Process: The Scheme Is Over?
• The Kimberley Process: The Final Chapter?
• The Kimberley Process, at War With Itself
• The Kimberley Process: Winners and Losers From the Two Year Zim-broglio
• Kimberley Process Chairman’s Decision Sparks New Uproar    
• NGOs Boycotting Kimberley Process Meeting
• Kimberley Process Reaches Deal on Zimbabwe
• Human Rights and the Kimberley Process
• The Kimberley Process, the Industry, and the NGOs
• Kimberley Process Update: What if a Chairman Gave a Directive—And Nobody Listened?

Coverage of Conflict Diamonds and the Kimberley Process From the Last Decade:

2010:

• Was the Kimberley Process Always Doomed?
  
• Another KP Crisis, Another Game of Chicken
• Kimberley Process Zimbabwe Monitor Said to “Go Rogue”
  
• Don’t Buy Marange Diamonds, KP Chair Warns
  
• It’s a Sad Sad Sad Sad Kimberley Process
  
• Why We Still Need a Kimberley Process
  
• The Kimberley Process’ Latest Near Death Experience
• The Kimberley Process On the Edge … (Again)
• The Kimberley Process and Zimbabwe: “The Least Bad Option”
• Trying to Process Kimberley
• Zimbabwe and KP: The Mess Gets Even Messier
  
• Zimbabwe Plays Chicken With Kimberley
• Did Zimbabwe Violate the KP?
  
• The Latest Zimbabwe/KP Mess
  

2009:

• Zimbabwe Not Suspended by KP
  
• The KP and Zimbabwe, Continued…
  
• The Kimberley Process and Zimbabwe, Once Again…
• Kimberley Craziness

2008:

• The Quest for Fair Trade Diamonds

2007:

• Blood Diamond Director Edward Zwick: The Industry Needs to Do More

2006:

• Politically Correct Diamonds?

2005

• DiCaprio, Kanye West Keep Spotlight on Conflict Diamonds

2004

• Kimberley Process Agrees to Peer Review

2003:

• The Kimberley Process: What It Means to You

2002:

• Will The Conflict Diamond Issue Ever Go Away?

2001:

• Just the FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions About ‘Conflict Diamonds’
• ‘Conflict’ Battle Brews in Congress

2000:

• ‘Conflict’ Resolution?
• Can System Track ‘Conflict’ Stones?

Follow JCK on Instagram: @jckmagazine
Follow JCK on Twitter: @jckmagazine
Follow JCK on Facebook: @jckmagazine