Exploitation of natural resources has become one of the principal means for parties to an armed conflict to finance their armed struggle. In response to this reality, several international approaches have been developed to curtail – what can be referred to as – ‘illegal’ exploitation of natural resources. The current chapter examines how ‘illegality’ is construed in this context and compares this to understandings of illegality within (domestic) peace settlements and the international legal framework for the governance of natural resources. The purpose of this inquiry is to understand how and to what extent international interventions support arrangements for the management of natural resources as set out in peace agreements. The chapter concludes that the international legal framework, international interventions and arrangements in domestic peace settlements are, for the most part, mutually supportive. At the same time, peace settlements tend to take a more expansionist approach of illegality compared to international interventions, including in their definition mismanagement of natural resources or their revenues by governments. Based on these precedents in domestic peace settlements, the chapter argues in favour of recalibrating conceptions of illegality in international approaches.

Why do states pursue different policies in response to international agreements? This chapter recaps from previous sections to explain how the findings in this study on the Kimberley Process can be used to understand the role of international agreements more generally. Since the Kimberley Process is often indecisive, it is an interesting puzzle why states, even those that often ignore international agreements, will use scarce resources to raise their level of compliance with the Kimberley Process. This chapter recaps the major findings from the five diamond-wealthy countries in sub-Saharan Africa that are examined: Angola, Central African Republic, Namibia, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe. These cases provide a large variation in compliance and cooperation with the Kimberley Process, due to the extent that diamond dependency constrains the ability of state actors to implement their preferences surrounding policy, the preferences of private actors, and the relative amount of power within and between these groups. This research shows that state responses to international agreements can be best understood as a process that takes place domestically as different actors compete to get their policy preferences implemented and domestic economic changes lead to changes in policy implementation.

The Kimberley Process is a weak international agreement, so why have states expended scarce resources to stay in compliance? This is the puzzle that will be laid out in the introductory chapter of this book, along with a discussion about the history and nature of the international agreement. The chapter discusses the importance of the diamond trade to the development of many states in Africa. While De Beers has long dominated the global diamond trade, the Kimberley Process was implemented in the early 2000s when the firm was starting to lose market share. Thus, other actors in the global diamond trade are examined, specifically Lev Leviev, who has made inroads into the diamond sector in many of the states examined in this study. The chapter also studies the diamond trade in Africa as a mode of exchange and questions whether the Kimberley Process has influenced this. .