More than four dozens persons met at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris last Tuesday to discuss the diamond and precious gem supply chains, human rights group Global Witness said in a press release. With the backing of the U.S. State Department and the U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office, industry stakeholders, which included the International Colored Gemstone Association, convened to speak of their fears that the diamond industry could be sullied by being associated with human rights abuses.

Meeting participants talked about how they could draw guidance from existing protocols that are not specific to the diamond industry, such as the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, stressing that these efforts need not come into conflict with already existing initiatives to stem human rights abuses, such as the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme and others.