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RJC certification system falls short, groups say

December 21, 2009

Washington, London, Melbourne, Australia, Elko, Ottawa--Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), technical experts and community representatives are criticizing the Responsible Jewellery Council's (RJC) recently launched certification system, cautioning against its limits and shortcomings.

According to a media release issued by the Canadian Boreal Initiative, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD), Earthworks, the Great Basin Resource Watch, Mining Watch Canada and the Western Shoshone Defense Project, the RJC's membership, despite many requests from civil society groups for more active representation and engagement, draws largely from the gold and diamond industries, and its process for developing standards and verification systems was governed and developed by the trade association and its members.

"Given the considerable impacts of gold mining and consumer concerns about 'dirty' gold, there is clearly a need for independent, third-party monitoring of the gold supply chain," Payal Sampat of Earthworks and the No Dirty Gold campaign said in the release. "Unfortunately, the RJC is a process led and governed entirely by the very industries that are to be monitored, and does not meet this need."

Alan Young of Canadian Boreal Initiative added that hiring outside consultants or firms to audit practices does not make a process independent or third party.

"This is a major shortcoming of the current RJC system and hurts its credibility and legitimacy," Young said in the release.

Civil society groups also raised concerns about the content of the mining standards being proposed by the RJC. The standards would let companies operate mines in conflict zones and in most protected areas, would allow dumping of tailings waste into lakes and deeper ocean waters, and provide limited or no control on emissions of toxic substances to the environment, the groups said.

In addition, the groups said the standards also lack provisions for community consent for mining operations or resettlement.

Also, because the system certifies companies rather than specific operations, it does not monitor the on-the-ground impacts of individual mining operations, or allow gold to be traced back to specific mines or practices.

"What kind of tangible impacts will the RJC's standards have for communities like ours who bear the brunt of gold mining's impacts?" Larson Bill of the Western Shoshone Defense Project said in the release. "What we really need is assurance that mining operations will respect our land, water and our right to free, prior and informed consent. The RJC falls far short of this."

According to the release, civil society groups are pointing to the need for a true third-party, multi-stakeholder process to develop a standards and assurance system for gold and precious minerals. Several civil society organizations and industry participants are actively engaged in such a process. The Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) is a multi-sector initiative involving representatives from jewelry and mining industries, NGOs, trade unions and mining affected communities.

"Many jewelers hoped that the RJC system would be the answer to their customers' concerns about 'dirty' and 'blood' gold," Sonya Maldar of CAFOD said in the release. "But consumers are unlikely to be comforted by a system that does not address the critical environmental and human rights issues they are concerned about, and whose credibility is being called into question by civil society groups that raised the alarm in the first place."
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