At the latest World Diamond Council and Kimberley Process meeting in Mumbai, newly elected WDC president Ronnie VanderLinden called on the global jewellery industry to unite behind natural diamonds and push for an expanded definition of so called “conflict diamonds.”
The proposed changes would significantly widen the current Kimberley Process definition, which since 2003 has been limited to rough diamonds sold by rebel groups to finance wars against legitimate governments. Under the new proposal, violence connected to militias, mercenaries, criminal organisations, private military groups and potentially even state actors could all fall under the conflict diamond banner.
VanderLinden told delegates, “We came so close. Now we need to finish the job.”
But behind the moral language and calls for reform lies a far more uncomfortable question rarely discussed openly within the diamond trade.
How large was the actual conflict diamond trade in reality?
At the height of the African civil wars during the 1990s, estimates from the United Nations and industry bodies suggested conflict diamonds represented roughly 3 to 4 percent of global rough diamond production by value. Today, most estimates place that figure well below 1 percent.
In dollar terms, the genuine conflict diamond trade at its peak was estimated at several hundred million dollars annually within a global diamond industry worth tens of billions. While any violence linked to resource extraction is serious, the scale was often portrayed publicly as though the entire natural diamond industry was funding war and instability across Africa.
That narrative created enormous political momentum for the Kimberley Process, introduced in 2003 as an international certification scheme designed to stop rebel financed diamonds entering global markets.
However, critics inside and outside producing nations have long argued the system evolved into something far broader than simply preventing war financing.
Many believe the Kimberley Process became a mechanism that allowed major corporations, powerful producing nations and dominant trading centres to control supply chains, regulate market access and economically pressure smaller African producers attempting to sell diamonds independently into open markets.
Countries such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo became heavily dependent on international approval systems dominated by larger political and commercial interests.
The irony is that diamonds themselves were never the root cause of these conflicts.
Civil wars in Africa were driven by poverty, corruption, political instability, foreign interference, weak governance and decades of exploitation dating back to colonial rule. Diamonds simply became a portable source of finance within conflicts that already existed.
In reality, many industries have financed wars throughout history including oil, rare earth minerals, timber, cobalt and even international banking systems. Yet diamonds alone became globally branded with a moral stigma powerful enough to reshape an entire industry.
Critics argue this was not accidental.
The conflict diamond campaign emerged during a period when multinational corporations and Western governments were seeking tighter control over commodity flows, sanctions enforcement and African resource markets. The emotional imagery used in campaigns helped justify increased oversight and certification structures that smaller producing nations often lacked the resources to comply with independently.
Some within the trade privately argue the Kimberley Process created barriers that favoured established corporate supply chains while limiting free market competition from smaller artisanal producers and emerging African exporters.
At the same time, the broader diamond industry has spent decades funding schools, hospitals, infrastructure and employment across producing nations such as Botswana and Namibia, where diamonds became critical pillars of national economic development.
This is part of what VanderLinden referenced when defending natural diamonds during his Mumbai address.
“We have to show what they do, the jobs they create, the communities they support, the countries they help build,” he said.
The timing is also significant.
The natural diamond industry is currently facing growing pressure from lab grown diamonds, weakening consumer demand in China, changing luxury spending patterns and increasing scrutiny over environmental and ethical claims.
Expanding the conflict diamond definition may help restore consumer confidence in natural diamonds, but it also risks reopening political debates about who controls certification systems and who ultimately benefits from them.
For many producing countries, the concern is not simply ethics but sovereignty.
The central issue remains whether international certification systems genuinely protect vulnerable populations or whether they increasingly function as economic gatekeeping tools controlled by powerful governments, NGOs and multinational interests.
The uncomfortable reality is that diamonds did not create Africa’s wars.
Human greed, political corruption, foreign interference and economic exploitation did.
And while the phrase “blood diamonds” became one of the most successful marketing narratives in modern history, the actual percentage of diamonds linked to rebel conflict was always relatively small compared with the enormous global trade in legitimate natural diamonds that continue to support millions of livelihoods around the world.
