This article did not propose a new or unique solution, but it was rather an analysis of the solutions provided by the international community in response to the issue at hand, that issue being blood diamonds. The international community began by creating a NGO titled "Global Witness" which produced a report in the winter of 1998 in which they analyzed Belgian important records of diamonds (mind you Antwerp is considered the center of the world's diamond trade) and found that rough diamonds were almost "completely unregulated during the better part of the twentieth century" (Blood diamonds and non state actors). This lack of regulation allowed African warlords to sell their diamonds to companies like De Beers, who would then bring them to Antwerp to be cut and polished, and then sold in a "moral" manner. In short Antwerp washed away the blood on the diamonds. In order to solve this issue several African, and non-African countries convened in Kimberley South, Africa and created the KPCS (Kimberley Process Certification Scheme). The KPCS was initially a resounding success for the following reasons, "Each member state agreed that no rough diamonds would be exported without a government-authorized KP certificate stating that the diamonds were conflict free. (70) To back this up, each producing country had to implement internal controls allowing diamonds to be tracked back to the place where they were mined. And each trading country that re-exported rough diamonds had to be able to trace them back to the point of import. KP members agreed that they would not trade with non-KP members. This meant that while the agreement was voluntary, common commercial sense obliged every country with a diamond industry to join" (Blood diamonds and non state actors). These changes were able to effectively obstruct the transacting of blood diamonds, but there was a critical problem with this solution. The critical problem with the KPCS was that its regulations couldn't be enforced effectively due to an "inadequate monitoring system" (Blood diamonds and non state actors), the basis of which was peer review. Peer review allowed for a great deal of inconsistency in the reviews given which then meant that the heads of KPCS didn't even know what was wrong with the system due to poor reviews. Another issue with the management with the KPCS was that the head changed on an annual basis which made it difficult to enact large changes or improvements onto the system.

The purpose of this article is quite different from my prior articles. My previous two articles identified the problem of exploitation, and also provided potential solutions to the issue, but this article delves deeper into the act of exploitation itself, as in how the process of exploitation actually unfolds which is a huge step up from my previous articles which were vague in regards to this aspect of exploitation. This article also provides a critical analysis of the solution implemented by countries with a substantial diamond sector by analyzing the reports provided & created by NGO's (nongovernmental organizations), along with the effectiveness of the KPCS (Kimberley Process Certification Scheme) & the CARAT bill (Consumer Access to a Responsible Accounting for Trade Bill).

The publication for this article is the Vanderbilt University, School of Law. Vanderbilt University has no clear, or rather distinct organizational goals. The university instead acts as a host for a wide variety of authors to publish their works and findings.

This article uses several resources to convey its message, but one that I find particularly important to my research is the previously mentioned investigation of the Belgian import records of diamonds. Global Witness had investigated these records through currently undisclosed methods, but I still find the findings to be striking to say the least. The NGO had discovered that UNITA, a Angolan militant group, "had generated $3.7 billion in diamond sales between 1992 and 1998" (A ROUGH TRADE: THE ROLE OF COMPANIES AND GOVERNMENTS IN THE ANGOLAN CONFLICT) by selling to western third parties, who then circulated these diamonds through Antwerp. The implications of this discovery in my research are huge, it is clear evidence of western cooperation in the exploitation of Africa for economic purposes. I think that the one downside to this piece of evidence was that the methods used to collect this evidence were never disclosed, which warrants some level of suspicion in regards to the validity of the findings, but I still think that they are valid due to the fact that Global Witness, who discovered this information, is a reputable organization.

After consulting HOTQ's I think that a question that will guide me in the future of my research into this topic is "How would you classify..." under the analysis question. I think that this question will show up in one way or another in my midterm SDA due to my ambitions for this SDA. For my midterm I hope to create a video essay in which I explore the idea of labeling certain companies as war criminals for their exploitative tactics, I had gotten this idea from the "Most dangerous idea" on the SDA menu. I think that this question relates to this because I will be attempting to classify certain companies as war criminals.

The database I used to find this information was the Gale Power Search, and the keywords I used during my search were Africa, resources, and exploitation.

Source(s):

Smillie, Ian. “Blood Diamonds and Non-State Actors.” Gale Power Search, Vanderbilt University, School of Law, Oct. 2013, https://go.gale.com/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T002&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&hitCount=229&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm¤tPosition=27&docId=GALE%7CA352752411&docType=Article&sort=Relevance&contentSegment=ZGPP-MOD1&prodId=GPS&pageNum=2&contentSet=GALE%7CA352752411&searchId=R1&userGroupName=nysl_ca_guild&inPS=true.