Ian Smillie currently chairs the Board of the Diamond Development Initiative, a non-governmental organization working to improve the condition of Africa's 1.5 million artisanal diamond diggers. He has written extensively on the issue of conflict diamonds and was directly involved in the negotiations leading to the creation of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme.

Diamonds are a multi-billion dollar business involving some of the world's largest mining companies, a million and a half artisanal diggers, more than a million cutters and polishers and a huge retail jewellery sector. But behind the sparkle of the diamond lies a murkier story, in which rebel armies in Angola, Sierra Leone and the Congo turned to diamonds to finance their wars. Completely unregulated, so-called blood diamonds became the perfect tool for money laundering, tax evasion, drug-running and weapons-trafficking.
Diamonds brings together for the first time all aspects of the diamond industry. In it, Ian Smillie, former UN Security Council investigator and leading figure in the blood diamonds campaign, offers a comprehensive analysis of the history and structure of today's diamond trade, the struggle for effective regulation and the challenges ahead. There is, he argues, greater diversification and competition than ever before, but thanks to the success of the Kimberley Process, this coveted and prestigious gem now represents a fragile but renewed opportunity for development in some of the world's poorest nations. This part of the diamond story has rarely been told.

Abbreviations page vi
Introduction 1
1 The Geology and History of Diamonds 6
2 Supply and Demand - The Business of Diamonds 16
3 Blood Diamonds 43
4 Activism 68
5 Regulation 88
6 Power and Politics 99
7 Development 142
8 Loose Ends 164
Notes 171
Selected readings 180
Index 184