Bureaucracy Creates Temporary Havoc - But The United States Will Synchronize Its Kimberley Participants List With The Rest Of The World
August 14, 03The sequence seems perfectly logical: on July 29, President Bush signs the Kimberley Implementation Executive Order; on July 31, Kimberley Process Chairman Abbey Chikane publishes the list of 40 Kimberley Compliant nations (which will go in effect on August 31, 2003); on August 11, the U.S. Government publishes its Kimberley Participants list in the U.S. Federal Register. Indeed, at that date the Department of State declared: "Participating countries eligible for trade in rough diamonds in accordance with the Clean Diamond Trade Act have been identified in a list published by the Department of State in the U.S. Federal Register August 11, 2003."
When it appeared that this list contained some 20 names which were disqualified by the Chair of the Kimberley Process, the immediate and spontaneous reaction was that the U.S. President had used his prerogative under U.S. law to disagree with the Kimberley Process Participants list and that he had added his own favorite nations. It almost seemed like the end of Kimberley...
However, it was not appreciated - certainly not by the undersigned - that the bureaucratic wheels of the U.S. government turn at different speeds. Logical sequences do not necessarily follow bureaucratic rules. Neither the Federal Register notice - nor the State Department officials - bothered to explain that within a few weeks they fully intended that there would be another U.S. list.
The U.S. Ambassador for Conflict Diamonds, Jay Bruns, explains that after the President signed the Executive Orders, the relevant government offices (Treasury, State Department) hurried to get instructions out to customs offices at the various border controls and thus the then available (on July 29) list of participants was used. To people familiar with U.S. bureaucracy it should have been clear that there was no way that when getting the "green light" to implement on July 29, the "first August 11 list" could include information that only became available on July 31... Actually, publishing the list in effect on July 29 only shows how quickly action was taken after the President signed the Executive Order.
"That August 11 list is the law of the land until we publish a new one," explains Jay Bruns in a telephone interview, "and we'll do our very best to have a new list before the end of August. I can't promise that we’ll make it by that date - but we'll make our best efforts."
One of the reasons so many NGO's, journalists and others are "jumpy" in respect to the United States Kimberley behavior is the fact that President Bush has been given extraordinary leeway by the Congress. The President doesn't have to abide by future decisions of the Kimberley Process, he doesn't have to accept changes made in the system (after April 2003), the president can add and remove countries as he wishes.
Will the president use his prerogative to include his own country names to the list? Will the United States recognize the list as approved from time to time by the Chair of Kimberley? Bruns gave a very cautious answer. "It is certainly our intention to have the same list as all other Kimberley Members. It must be recognized, however, that every list is a temporary one. It is a process of constant change - nations will come off and on the list all the time." Bruns didn't rule out that the President may have a few different names - at least, in a most diplomatic way, he didn’t want to commit his President either way. We felt, however, that we can be reasonably convinced that the European and American lists will by synchronized.
Bruns reassured us that a U.S. Deputy Secretary of State doesn't so easily "publish wrong lists", as we had assumed in an earlier internet edition of this article. "These are not the kind of mistakes that happen on that level."
As the so-called tolerance period -- in which trade with non-fully compliant nations is still allowed -- will only be ending at the end of August, 2003, there is actually nothing wrong with the present list of 59, declares the Ambassador. "It is the present law in the land, as it is also in Europe or anywhere else for that matter".
We accept Bruns' explanations. They make sense. The Ambassador, however, also ought to appreciate that the United States was extremely late in joining the Kimberley implementation process. Europe and other countries have been operating under the authority of a variety of lists. The "newcomer" in implementation should not - and certainly not without comments – publish an "old list" on August 11, 2003, at a time the more up-to-date list was already widely available. Actually, as Ambassador Bruns was actively involved in the process, he knew which were the fully compliant nations around the time the President signed the Executive Order.
Indeed, the United States knew FULL WELL on August 11, 2003, that its list would have to be revised again before the end of the month. That was very well known on July 29, 2003. If it would have indicated that this first ever U.S. Kimberley List would have a shelf life of just two-and-half weeks, that might have helped avoiding a lot of damage to the standing of the United States in the Kimberley Process.
Ambassador Bruns is an outstanding team player. The Federal Register published the unfortunate list while he was on vacation. Now he is back - and firmly in the driver's seat. Let's now only hope that, indeed, not later than August 31, 2003, the U.S. government publishes its second very much shorter list - and let’s hope that this will be the same list as used everywhere else in the world at that date.
If he misses that target date then, again, we have a new problem. Somehow, we tend to believe that we don't have to worry about. Ambassador Bruns can do without another round of this... We wish him good luck.