WTO Approves Kimberley Waiver

With unprecedented speed did the relevant World Trade Organization committee agree to violate its own free trade principles to allow the Kimberley process to be legally applied in all its provisions. In other words, the WTO agrees that a country may refuse to export rough diamond to, or import from, any country that is NOT a member of the Kimberley regime.

The approval still has to be approved by the full Council, but this is seen as an automatic rubberstamping procedure. The fact that the waiver was asked by 11 countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, Israel, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Thailand, United Arab Emirates and the United States) carried considerable weight.

Unlike the Kimberley process itself, the WTO waiver has a time framework. It applies as of 1 January 2003 and remains in effect until 31 December 2006. In a way, that provides the industry with a "window" to reconsider the need, the effectiveness, the advantages and disadvantages of the current system. It seems reasonable to except that the international community will want to keep the system in effect indefinitely, not because of conflict diamonds (which, by the end of 2006, surely will not be a problem any more), but rather because of the transparency it provides to the international trade in rough diamonds. (Click here for a copy of the WTO decision).

Kimberley is now not only the law of the land, but it has received the sanction of the world's highest trade regulations body. It is a great day for Kimberley.