[Answered] Analyze India’s role as the 2026 Chair of the Kimberley Process in bridging the rift between G7 traceability mandates and the Global South’s sovereignty. Evaluate the potential for institutional reforms to redefine ‘conflict diamonds’ while safeguarding India’s strategic economic interests.

Introduction

Assuming the Kimberley Process chair in 2026, India leads a regime covering 99.8% of global rough diamonds, amid G7 sanctions, Global South resistance, and a legitimacy crisis in ethical trade governance.

Kimberley Process: From Ethical Innovation to Governance Stress

1. Foundational Mandate and Achievements: The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), launched in 2003, was a pioneering multilateral response to ‘blood diamonds’ financing rebel insurgencies. According to the World Diamond Council, conflict diamonds declined from nearly 15% in the 1990s to below 1% today, reflecting normative success.
2. Emerging Structural Limitations: Geopopolitics and global supply chains have outpaced KP design. The narrow definition of conflict diamonds excludes state-linked violence, labour exploitation, environmental harm, and illicit trafficking, drawing sustained criticism from Global Witness and UN expert panels.

India’s Strategic Leverage in the Global Diamond Value Chain

1. Systemic Centrality Without Production Bias: India is indispensable yet non-extractive. It imports about 40% of global rough diamonds and polishes nearly 90% of the world’s diamonds, sustaining millions of livelihoods in Surat and Mumbai (GJEPC data). This gives India reform credibility without producer-consumer polarisation.
2. Voice of the Global South: As a leader of South–South cooperation, India’s KP chairmanship echoes its G20 presidency ethos of ‘inclusive multilateralism’. Producer states in Africa trust India more than G7-led unilateral frameworks.

Bridging the G7 Traceability Push and Sovereign Concerns

1. The G7 Traceability Mandate: From 2026, G7 countries—accounting for nearly 50% of global diamond consumption—mandate traceability-based evidence for diamond imports. While framed as ESG compliance, OECD and AfDB studies warn that high-cost digital compliance could exclude artisanal miners, fuelling informality.
2. India as a Norm Broker: India can multilateralise traceability rather than let it fragment governance. By embedding blockchain-based, tamper-proof KP certificates, harmonised customs data exchange, and phased compliance, India can reconcile ethics with equity.

Redefining ‘Conflict Diamonds’: Reform Without Rupture

1. The Definition Deadlock: The current rebel-centric definition is normatively inadequate but politically sensitive. Expanding it to include state-sponsored human rights violations risks vetoes under KP’s consensus rule.
2. Incremental Institutional Reform: India can pursue functional expansion without political fracture. Establishing technical working groups on violence, human rights and environmental risks can build evidence-based consensus, learning from the Central African Republic experience where embargoes increased smuggling and violence.

Safeguarding India’s Strategic Economic Interests

1. Protecting the ‘Surat Hub’: Ethics cannot ignore livelihoods. Russian supplier Alrosa accounts for ~40% of India’s rough diamond intake; abrupt bans threaten employment and export competitiveness.
2. Rule-Based Oversight, Not Blanket Sanctions: India is likely to push peer-review mechanisms, third-party audits, and data-driven monitoring. This mirrors WTO-style rule-based governance rather than coercive unilateralism.

Reorienting the KP Towards Development and Sustainability

1. Africa-Centric Developmental Lens: Diamonds are development assets. India can align KP objectives with SDGs 8, 12 and 16, ensuring revenues fund health, education and infrastructure in mining communities.
2. Future-Proofing the KP: Integrating ESG norms and ‘Diamond-Plus’ certification can also help the KP respond to competition from lab-grown diamonds and shifting consumer ethics.

Conclusion

Echoing President K.R. Narayanan’s vision of ‘ethical multilateralism’, India can polish the Kimberley Process into a transparent, inclusive regime balancing moral responsibility, Global South sovereignty, and strategic economic resilience.