The birth of a new world order

24th October 2007
By Christine Jojarth

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Traditional institutional arrangements are under attack. A growing number of policy makers and academics are questioning the adequacy of the post-World War II governance architecture for dealing with today’s transnational problems.

How can legally-binding conventions that take years to draft and formal intergovernmental organisations with their cumbersome bureaucratic procedures respond to the complex, fast-changing problems that are the hallmark of our age of globalisation? How can they include the diverse views of an increasingly organised global civil society? How can they move beyond the pure formalism we witness when states ratify an international treaty with little intention of implementing their pledges?

In more and more cases, the answer to these questions is that traditional governance arrangements simply cannot live up to these expectations — that they are outdated and need to be substituted by a ‘new world order’. The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme — more often known as the Kimberley Process, or KP — provides an instructive example of what this new world order could look like. It seeks to address the challenges arising from globalisation and from the emancipation of civil society through three unconventional governance features.

First, the Kimberley Process relies neither on legally binding law nor on a formal intergovernmental organisation. The Kimberley Process, adopted five years ago, was deliberately drafted as a legally non-binding memorandum of understanding which did not require state ratification.

While this design choice reduces the formal strength of endorsing states’ commitment, it offers the great advantage of maintaining the ‘process’ character of international diamond trade controls by allowing for flexible adjustments on a learning-by-doing basis. The KP participants have so far proved willing and able to use this flexibility to the benefit of the scheme. For example, when confronted with a question not addressed in the ‘founding document’ of 2002 (e.g. membership conditions, compliance mechanisms, terms of the chair, etc), the participants adopted a common response during their plenary meetings or through an informal consultative process without amending the text of the original agreement.

The organisational structure of the Kimberley Process displays a similar pragmatism. To keep overheads to a minimum and to avoid controversy over the distribution of administrative expenses, the Kimberley Process has betted on burden-sharing and voluntarism. The only centralised support structure the KP relies on comes from an annually rotating chairmanship, whereby the country that serves as chair also provides, at its own expense, a small secretariat.

The second factor that sets the Kimberley Process apart from traditional forms of international co-operation is the direct involvement of non-state actors. While many international institutions of the post-World War II era opened themselves up to civil society groups, virtually none has gone as far as the Kimberley Process. The KP grants representatives of NGOs — London-based Global Witness and Ottawa’s Partnership Africa Canada — and the industry (through the World Diamond Council) a seat at the negotiation table. Despite the fact that they possess no formal voting power, these non-state actors exert considerable influence on decision-making.

Finally, the KP has successfully grown unusually strong ‘teeth’ since its inception. Over the past four years, the participants have developed effective compliance mechanisms that apply to both applicants and member states. Every state that wishes to join the Kimberley Process needs to demonstrate its willingness and ability to implement the core requirements of the KP. Compliance of existing participants is monitored through review visits, which are conducted upon the invitation of the state that is to be reviewed, and through review missions, which are dispatched in cases where there are credible indications of significant non-compliance.

If non-compliance is confirmed, then that country is dropped from the list of official KP participants, which is the KP’s euphemism for imposing membership sanctions. Exclusion from the Kimberley Process presents a significant punishment for any state that has a stake in the international rough diamond trade — whether it is in the mining, trading, or cutting and polishing stage. It implies the near total exclusion from the legal trade in rough diamonds because KP participants control more than 99 per cent of the global market and are banned from trading with non-participants. The KP’s membership policy contrasts sharply with most international conventions which condition membership solely on the deposit of procedurally correct instruments of ratification, acceptance or approval without any proof of actual implementation.

In many ways the Kimberley Process presents an almost textbook-like implementation of those ideas on global governance that emerged after the end of the Cold War. At the turn of the century, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan summarised this new perspective when he declared that ‘[b]y now we know that peace and prosperity cannot be achieved without partners involving governments, international organisations, the business community and civil society.’

The Kimberley Process provides a promising example of how the need for multi-stakeholder participation can be translated into an effective international institution.

Christine Jojarth is a Research Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, Stanford University.

Filed Under: International Relations, Diamonds, International Trade, Kimberley Process
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