At his final World Diamond Congress in his capacity as chairman of the World Diamond Council, Eli Izhakoff praised the work of the Kimberley Process and expressed firm support for an enhanced definition that would take into account other forms of violence that are not currently covered under the protocol, Diamond Intelligence reported.



Izhakoff noted that the establishment of the Kimberley Process has helped to reduce the amount of human suffering in the parts of the world that previously benefitted from a robust trade in conflict diamonds. But he did not budge from the demand that international human rights law be incorporated into diamond industry protocols.



To underscore his point, Izhakoff quoted one of the founding father of his Indian hosts, legendary peace activist Mahatma Ghandi. Izhakoff noted that Ghandi labeled "commerce without morality" as one of the seven roots of violence, and urged the audience to take this lesson to heart and support the proposal to beef up the KP's conflict diamond definition.