Closing Remarks by Ahmed Bin Sulayem at Kimberley Process Intersessional, May 2025

Ahmed bin Sulayem
May 20

Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, colleagues,

As we conclude the 2025 Intersessional, I want to begin by thanking all of you – especially the Working Group Chairs – for your efforts and constructive engagement throughout the week.We are in the midst of the “Year of Best Practice,” and this week’s sessions have been a reminder of the determination across this room to live up to that promise. We are moving forward – not always easily, but certainly with intention.

I am particularly encouraged by the progress on Verifico. This platform was developed to modernise certificate traceability, but its success depends on collective uptake.

I’m therefore pleased to announce that five KP Participants have now expressed clear interest in conducting mapping exercises to explore implementation.

We look forward to supporting you as this best practice grows.

The Civil Society Coalition’s side event also deserves mention. In the spirit of openness, allow me to share a metaphor: when a lobster grows, it must shed its shell. This process is painful and leaves it vulnerable – but it is the only way to grow. That’s where we are as a Process. Growth comes through discomfort, and I thank the Civil Society Coalition for continuing to challenge us to evolve.

At the same time, scrutiny must come with responsibility. I must therefore raise concerns because it has come to our attention on good authority that one of the individuals featured in the video is a known criminal – a man guilty of stealing funds from a community project in Lesotho.

Considering this video used EU funding, it’s concerning that it appears to have been produced without the necessary due diligence, background checks or clearance from IRMA or even the RJC. We welcome diverse voices, but we must also uphold standards of integrity and accountability across all stakeholder groups.

We are aware that the Lesotho Chamber of Mines is looking into this matter, and has raised this with Lesotho’s EU ambassador as well.

On the topic of integrity, let me draw your attention to a broader hypocrisy that many in this room are already aware of: diamonds remain the most scrutinised commodity in the world.

We track carats with physical certificates, satellite data, and third-party audits.

And yet, a company like Apple – which consumes more than 12,000 tonnes of cobalt alone annually – was accused of sourcing minerals like tin, tantalum, tungsten, cobalt and gold in its supply chains from conflict zones in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

To put this into perspective: the entire global supply of diamonds weighs less than 25 tonnes a year, and yet we are the ones carrying the burden of proof.

How can we accurately trace diamonds a few millimetres wide, and yet 10s of thousands of tonnes of rare earth and critical minerals, loaded onto giant crates on trucks, are seemingly not traceable in today’s world of digital tracking, satellite imagery, and blockchain?

This is a question the tech sector, as well as other mineral-exposed sectors, must now confront, take on board key lessons, and replicate the KP as a model of best practice for their industries.

In this spirit, I would like to formally invite Ashley Kushner Orbach, Apple’s Director of Environment and Supply Chain Innovation – and someone who knows the Kimberley Process well as the former KP Focal Point for the United States until 2016 – to visit us here in the UAE this year.

We would be glad to share our learnings, our systems, and our approach. I believe there is much we can do together. Let’s make tech great again.

This brings me to another issue that I raised earlier this week and expanded on in my Politico Europe op-ed: the arms trade. For too long, the global trade in weapons has remained in the shadows.

It continues to destabilise diamond-producing nations and directly undermines the goals of the Kimberley Process. This must change.

By the time we reach Plenary, possibly with its own side event, I am hopeful that we will have outlined a path toward deeper collaboration with entities like the Arms Trade Treaty and the UN Register of Conventional Arms.

It is time to bring the arms industry into the light – with the same level of traceability, enforcement, and scrutiny we apply to diamonds.

I also commend the continued work of the Ad Hoc Committee on Review and Reform, which has taken the Year of Delivery message seriously.

The engagement by African producers on the definition of conflict diamonds is especially cherished.

The text proposal from ADPA is moving the conversation forward and showcasing the importance of a clear and non-ambiguous new definition.

While we’re still some distance from consensus, this marks real and necessary progress. We look forward to this new definition delivered by the end of plenary in the Ad Hoc Committee on Review and Reform’s Year of Delivery.

Over the past 48 hours, a familiar critic has resurfaced – once again attacking the Kimberley Process as a failure. Let me be clear: criticism is welcome, but only when accompanied by constructive alternatives.

What we are hearing are repeated attempts to distort the KP’s mandate – a desire to transform it into something it was never designed to be.

The KP is not a sanctions regime. It is not the Human Rights Council. And it is certainly not a political instrument for one stakeholder or interest group. The KP was established to prevent the trade in conflict diamonds, and to do so through consensus, not coercion.

If there are grave concerns about human rights violations, terrorism, or foreign interference in resource markets, then let us refer these matters to the United Nations Security Council. Everyone here should know it is the only international body mandated to investigate, sanction, and enforce.

At the geopolitical level, we must confront one simple truth: the KP is being pulled into issues it was never designed to solve.

I therefore acknowledge the United States for its efforts to remove Sustainable Development Goal references in the latest UN Resolution A/79/L63.

Although they were ultimately unsuccessful, this was an example of a broader concern that reached the level of formal debate and voting.

Gridlocks are not helping our work. These are already turbulent times for the industry – with mine closures in Lesotho and Sierra Leone, shifting demand patterns, and market contraction in several regions. All major diamond mining companies are bleeding.

There are three markets currently keeping the industry alive:

– The first is the United States, the world’s largest jewellery retail market, worth up to USD 77 billion last year.

– The second is India, still the world’s largest cutting and polishing hub, and which processes 9 out of 10 diamonds sold worldwide.

– And the third is the UAE, the largest rough diamond hub in the world, having traded over 1.06 billion carats of combined rough and polished in the past five years — a figure that we as KP are proud to reveal with the latest data for 2024 from Dubai Customs.

The wider point is this: we need the Kimberley Process to remain focused, so that all of us can continue to support trade growth, resilience and development.

To that end, I call for a high-level Ministerial meeting of the Kimberley Process – one that brings together producing, trading and consumer countries at the political level – to chart a path forward on the most urgent challenges facing the Kimberley Process.

Finally, let me close with a few reflections on leadership. It is unfortunate that we still do not have an incoming KP Vice Chair.

This must change. I reiterate my call for a strong pipeline of future Chairs and I remind everyone that the Chair must be selected by consensus among KP Participants.

Before we conclude, I want to sincerely thank all of you for being here and for showing up – not just physically, but with purpose, energy, and commitment.

The challenges we face are real, and in some cases urgent. But I am confident that we will resolve them through continued dialogue and the spirit of consensus. Let us seize the momentum of this week – not by looking back, but by moving further, together. I look forward to continuing this work with all of you in the months ahead.

Thank you.