Kimberley Process members have voted in favor of a modified version of the Jerusalem Agreement on diamond exports from Zimbabwe, which was originally drafted at the KP plenary meeting in Jerusalem in November 2010, the Voice of America reports.



At Zimbabwe's insistence, the agreement's "violence clause" has been altered and now requires that three – rather than two – KP member nations support a call for monitoring, in effect making it more difficult seek a formal KP investigation into alleged human rights abuses in the Marange diamond fields.



The amendment vote, which was sent out to KP members by e-mail, was outgoing KP Chairman Boaz Hirsch's last attempt to "bring the issue of exports of rough diamonds from Marange to a successful close," as he wrote in a cover letter sent out with the amended version of the agreement.



There was no formal notification about the vote from the Kimberley Process.