Poking around on borders and identifying malefactors is essentially undiplomatic activity and not something the U.N. has been eager to undertake. Yet it must. The U.N. needs a permanent arms embargo unit with real investigative capacity and the mandate to keep hammering at governments that try to cover up their complicity. But not all the blame for lax enforcement can be laid at the door of the U.N. Individual governments also are at fault. Diamond embargoes are more attractive to them partly because the busy work of checking certificates can be done at home.
Arms embargoes require sending outsiders into obscure countries to do dangerous work.
On the very day after the U.N. Security Council approved the diamond embargo on Sierra Leone, several countries immediately passed such legislation. Yet only a tiny handful of countries has put the Sierra Leone arms embargo into domestic law. The diamond trade and the arms trade are closely linked. Kenneth Roth Is Executive Director of Human Rights Watch.