5. Conclusions
This report aims to provide an overview of the ways in which three EU member states, Belgium, the UK, and the Netherlands have implemented UN resolutions to prevent the import of diamonds from rebel-held areas in Angola and Sierra Leone. These resolutions were motivated by a desire to halt brutal civil wars in those countries, financed in part through the proceeds of diamond sales.
Research examining how these three European countries regulated and inspected trade in direct and indirect imports of rough diamonds revealed that inspection and monitoring were very different. This included differences in the ways certificates of origin, required by UN resolutions to accompany the imports of rough diamonds from Angola and Sierra Leone, were verified. In general, Belgium's border controls and capacity to verify certificates of origin is the most developed, not matched by the UK and certainly not by the Netherlands.
Belgium and the UK have an important responsibility for implementing UN resolutions on diamond trading. For instance an estimated 70% to 80% of all rough diamonds on the world market pass through Belgium. Mainly due to the presence of de Beers Offices in London, The UK is also a large importer of rough diamonds, having imported more than Belgium in 1999. The Netherlands is involved in only a very small part of the world's rough diamond trade.
Belgium has considerable responsibility for the processing of imports with certificates of origin from Angola. It imports the largest part of the official Angolan diamond production, and imports have been increasing since the UN resolutions went into effect in 1998. The UK also imported directly from Angola in 1999.
Trade figures indicate that Belgium has imported less and less rough diamonds from Sierra Leone since UN resolutions require such imports to be accompanied by certificates of origin. The Sierra Leone authorities have declared that certificates were also accompanying exports to the UK, but this was not reflected in the trade figures analysed in this report (which do not cover the period October - December 2000 and from April 2001 onwards).
Since the UN resolution on Angola was adopted in 1988, most imports in Belgium from "sensitive" countries, that potentially import and export prohibited diamonds, have increased. Those of the UK have decreased, except for Namibia and South Africa. The Netherlands imported a small amount of diamonds from Liberia prior to a UN resolution ban. This gives Belgium an important role in checking for indirect imports of conflict diamonds.
As observed by UN experts reporting on the monitoring mechanisms used to implement the Angola sanctions, there is still the general problem that trade statistics are inadequate to monitor the diamond trade and track illegally traded diamonds. Trade statistics provided by different countries are not fully comparable. This can lead to anomalies in trade figures.
Belgium did not include trade statistics on rough or roughly worked 'industrial' diamonds in its reports on conflict diamonds, nor did it fully explain some surprising trends in the available statistics. UK statistics included very incomplete figures on the country of origin, in reference to all imported rough diamonds and the country of provenance. The figures of Belgium, the UK and the Netherlands did not match in regard to trade in rough diamonds among themselves.
Notwithstanding this lack of information and standardised definitions, statistics are still valuable for analysing trends in order to scrutinise suspect rough diamond imports by national authorities, as is the case in Belgium. The UK and the Netherlands did not use statistics to help monitor compliance with UN resolutions. The UK Customs and Excise department even prevented external monitoring by refusing to provide UK figures on rough diamonds for this research. This might be due to the commercial interests of De Beers, which is one of the world’s largest traders in rough diamonds.
Transparency regarding the measures taken by Belgium, the UK, and the Netherlands to implement UN sanctions on conflict diamonds varies greatly. Access to information for this report has been hampered by the decision of the participants of the Kimberly Process to keep the responses to the detailed questionnaire confidential. Only Belgium published regular reports with detailed information about the regulations and border checks in place to avoid conflict diamonds. Such information was much less accessible and widespread among government officials in the UK and the Netherlands. Lack of information about the UN resolutions among customs officials of the Netherlands has been especially worrying.
The EU implemented each of the UN resolutions, first through a common position by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs within the scope of the EU common foreign and security policy. Secondly, an EU Regulation on each UN resolution was adopted on the necessary trade restrictions within the scope of the common commercial policy.
The unique diamond import licensing-system, already in place before the UN diamond sanctions were adopted, allowed Belgium to strictly enact all UN resolutions the day after they were adopted. Neither of the other two countries had such systems in place. The UK's United Nations Regulation Act is secondary legislation that allowed the UK to adopt new legislation to implement the three UN resolutions, without waiting for parliamentary approval, one week to one month after they were passed.
The Netherlands used a similar secondary legislation provision (the sanctiewet), but it took several months before the laws on UN resolutions came into force. Before that time, Dutch customs officials had already been informally informed.
Only the Netherlands has waited to take action on the UN resolutions until after the EU had passed the related EU Regulations.
Of the three countries, only Belgium has a Diamond Task Force in which several ministries exchange information at both the political and administrative levels. This Task Force has strengthened Belgium’s capacity to implement the UN resolutions.
Given the economic importance of the diamond trade for Belgium, and to avoid negative publicity, the government has provided financial and human resources to prevent conflict diamonds from entering the country. The Dutch government, on the other hand, decided that dealing with conflict diamonds was not an economic priority and has not allocated new resources to its personnel-strapped customs departments. For the UK, researchers learned of no special resources allocated for the implementation of UN sanctions on conflict diamonds.
Some of the obstacles to implementing the sanctions experienced by the Belgian Ministry of Economic Affairs can only be solved with international support. For example, issuing licenses for diamonds can be difficult if the conflict areas where diamonds are mined change from day to day, meaning that the legality of imported diamonds can also change from day to day. On its own, the Belgian government cannot verify if conflict diamonds have received authentic certificates of origin from the appropriate authorities in Angola and Sierra Leone.
The ways rough diamond imports, including their certificates of origin, are monitored and inspected at the border, vary widely between Belgium, the UK and the Netherlands.
Within EU member states, imports from other European countries, whatever their origin, cannot be subject to customs operations.
Belgium, however, monitors such imports trough data collection. In addition, expert inspectors appointed and supervised by the Ministry of Economic Affairs check each and every diamond parcel, including those from non-EU countries. Still, not every individual diamond is actually inspected.
In the UK, customs use special methods to select diamond imports from non-EU countries for border inspection. This limited border control of diamonds seems insufficient to implement UN resolutions given the large amount of rough diamond imports into the UK.
In the Netherlands, customs control of diamond imports, including those from countries under UN embargo or from sensitive countries, is very limited. The capacity to supervise controls for implementation of UN sanctions is non-existent.
Only Belgium regulates diamond trade in such a way that all imported or exported diamonds must pass through one location where there is inspection expertise. This location is partially operated on a commercial basis. Three agencies are currently involved in checking all diamond imports and exports.
The capacity to verify the certificates of origin for diamonds imported from Angola and Sierra Leone was very different in the three countries researched. The Belgian government established an electronic system to exchange information with Sierra Leone, which includes the exchange of photos of the diamonds as well as the sealed parcels. Belgium is the only country willing to commit itself to such a costly operation. Although Belgium has not worked out such a direct electronic communication system with the government of Angola, the certificate verification system allowed Belgium to detect some irregularities. For both countries, the verification of certificates follows well-established procedures between the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Customs.
In both the UK and the Netherlands, there are no such elaborated procedures to verify the certificates of origin, which is now being done by customs. No links have been established to directly contact authorities in Sierra Leone or Angola.
This weak verification of the certificates is especially worrying for the UK because it has been importing diamonds from Angola and Sierra Leone at the time certificates were required. As it is a large importer of rough diamonds, the UK will need to seriously strengthen its verification capacity if in the future all rough diamonds will be accompanied by certificates to origin.
In the Netherlands, lack of trained personnel as well as the absence of awareness of UN resolutions means that these resolutions were in practice not implemented. Further research is needed to find out how seriously the situation in the Netherlands might undermine overall implementation of UN resolutions; especially since recent imports of rough diamonds through Schiphol Airport to Antwerp have increased due to a boycott by transport companies of Belgium’s Zaventem Airport for security reasons.
The established free trade provisions of the EU are undermining the inspection of all rough diamonds traded among EU member states. Such inspections might however be useful in ensuring that conflict diamonds are not being indirectly imported. For instance, Belgium is not allowed to operate a license system for imports coming from other EU countries even though (as this report shows) the checks on diamonds imported in some other EU countries are very weak. Moreover, the physical inspection of diamond imports from EU countries at the Belgian entry point violates EU legislation. For the moment, there is no real pressure to challenge these inspections, but other EU countries, such as the Netherlands and the UK, refrain from extensive border checks due to EU legislation. This could mean that EU countries do not forego free trade obligations under the EU Treaty, although UN resolutions require them to "act strictly in accordance with the provisions of [UN resolutions] notwithstanding the existence of any rights or obligations conferred or imposed by any international agreement or any contract entered into". Moreover, Regulations adopted by the EU to implement UN sanctions did not regulate rough diamond imports from the so-called ‘sensitive countries’, although they potentially trade in conflict diamonds.
Another contraction between the EU common foreign and security policy, which decides on UN sanctions, and the EU common trade policies, is the lack of an EU co-ordinated decision-making or position towards the Kimberley process.
The conclusions reveal many obstacles to implement the call of the UN resolutions to ban "indirect" imports, imports of rough diamonds from Angola and Sierra Leone without a certificate of origin, and imports from countries that might export conflict diamonds (the ‘sensitive countries’). This highlights the need for certificates of origin for all rough diamonds. However, the effectiveness of the current certification needs to be assessed. The certification system only operates at the first border of entry of diamonds from Sierra Leone or Angola, and not when the diamonds are later exported to other countries. The certificate does not accompany the rough diamonds through the cutting and polishing process until they are sold to customers.
The UN resolutions to help break the link between the trade in conflict diamonds and the perpetuation of violent conflicts in Africa stand as a challenge, both to the EU and individual European countries. Indeed, the main challenge of all countries involved is to show whether their priority is peace and security in Africa, or their own economic and trade interests.