What the Kimberley Process actually requires of an SA dealer

The Kimberley Process is the global agreement that makes blood diamond, in 2026, a category that almost no longer exists. It was implemented in 2003 by seventy-five founding participants who, between them, then represented essentially the entire global rough-diamond trade. South Africa is the country in whose town the agreement was first articulated, and the South African dealer is the dealer a buyer can question most directly about it. What the process actually requires of an SA dealer is narrower, more documentable, and more verifiable than most buyers realise.

The history matters because the document matters. The document matters because the dealer who keeps it well is the dealer to buy from.

Where it came from

The early-2000s push to formalise rough-diamond provenance began in Southern Africa — specifically in response to the use of rough-diamond revenue to fund armed conflict in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola, and what was then Zaire. The United Nations Security Council passed resolutions targeting conflict diamonds in 1998 and 2000. The diamond industry, faced with a structural threat to consumer confidence, convened a working group. The working group met first in Kimberley, South Africa, in May 2000. By November 2002, a multilateral agreement — the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) — had been finalised. The scheme came into force on 1 January 2003.

The KPCS is not a treaty. It is a voluntary multilateral agreement administered by a rotating chair, monitored by participants, and enforced by the willingness of national customs authorities to check certificates at borders. It binds the eighty-five participants representing roughly ninety-nine per cent of global rough-diamond production and the major trading centres.

What KP requires of a dealer

The mechanics. Every parcel of rough crossing an international border between participants moves with a Kimberley Process certificate, issued by the exporting country’s designated authority, attesting that the rough is conflict-free per the KP definition. South Africa’s designated authority is the South African Diamond and Precious Metals Regulator. The exporter retains the certificate; the importing dealer retains the certificate; both produce it on demand from any KP-accredited inspector.

For polished stones, the chain becomes a written warranty system. Every invoice between trade members must carry a System of Warranties statement, in language adopted by the World Diamond Council, attesting that the diamonds invoiced are sourced from KP-compliant rough and that no party in the chain has knowingly bought non-KP material. The warranty statement is a sentence, not a document, but it is required on every invoice and every memorandum of consignment.

What KP does and does not catch

It catches the original problem it was designed for: rough-diamond revenue funding armed conflict between rival forces in a producing country. The KP definition is narrow on this — it covers rough used to finance forces opposed to a legitimate government — but the narrow definition has been enforced with reasonable rigour for two decades, and the share of conflict-financing rough in global supply is now a fraction of one per cent.

What it does not catch: human-rights abuses by legitimate governments against artisanal miners; environmental damage at production sites; smuggling between participants that lands rough in the certified system through document fraud; synthetic diamonds passed off as natural in the polished stage, which sit outside KP entirely. The Kimberley Process is a focused tool. It is not a general-purpose ethical-sourcing audit. Buyers who want broader assurances need to ask broader questions.

The System of Warranties statement is required on the invoice for every shipment of rough, polished, or set diamonds traded between participants. It binds each party in the chain to a written assurance of KP-compliant sourcing.

— World Diamond Council, System of Warranties protocol

How to verify a dealer’s compliance

The South African buyer has more leverage on this question than most international buyers, because the trade is small and the local regulator is responsive. Three direct asks.

First: ask the dealer to show you the System of Warranties statement on the invoice for the specific stone. It is one sentence. It should be there. If it is not, the dealer is out of compliance with their own trade-level obligations, and you do not need to debate why.

Second: ask the dealer where the rough originated. A dealer who manufactures locally — like the Bedfordview wholesaler I have written about elsewhere, who sources directly from Kimberley, Wolmaransstad, and Schweizer Reneke — can tell you the producing mine and show you the South African KP certificate of origin. A dealer who imports cut stones from elsewhere can tell you the export country and show you the KP certificate that came with the parcel into South Africa. A dealer who cannot answer either question is a dealer who is reselling stones they have not traced.

Third: ask whether the dealer is a member of the Diamond Dealers Club of South Africa. Membership is not a KP requirement, but it is a reasonable proxy for the dealer’s position in the formal trade and their accountability to the trade’s enforcement mechanisms. The DDC publishes its membership.

The honest concession

KP compliance is not the same as ethical sourcing in the broadest sense. A dealer can be fully KP-compliant and still source from a legitimate-government mine where labour practices are documented as poor; the KP definition does not reach that. A dealer can be KP-compliant and still hold synthetic diamonds whose origin is industrial rather than mined. The buyer who wants assurances beyond KP — on labour practices, on environmental impact, on synthetic exclusion — needs to ask additional questions and accept additional documents.

Several South African dealers, including Shimansky and Browns, publish broader ethical-sourcing statements that go beyond KP minimums. Cape Diamonds publishes its sourcing chain in detail. The wholesalers in the Bedfordview corridor mostly do the same, though their disclosure is communicated in conversation more than in marketing material. Asking a dealer to walk you through their ethical-sourcing position past KP is one of the better tests of whether the dealer is a serious counterparty or a reseller.

If you would like the longer version of how to walk into one of these conversations, the wholesale primer covers it. The certificate guide covers what to ask about grading, separately from sourcing. Our editorial standards govern how I report any of this; the sources page lists the institutional documents I cite.