As of 31st July 2024
Blacklock Jewellery understands the impact of mining for gold, diamonds, and gemstones on many countries across the world. These raw materials are integral to the Blacklock jewellery business and are significant contributors to economic growth and development. This policy details how Blacklock Jewellery applies an inclusion/exclusion framework for ‘country risk’ around the mining of these materials.
Policy
The risk to legitimate sourcing is greatly affected by mining where there is conflict, corruption, and/or poor governance. Mining and trading of these minerals in some countries may infringe on human rights, be subjected to corrupt or unethical practices, and in some cases even fuel conflict.
We endeavour to monitor these country-level risks and may, from time to time, exclude countries from our sourcing. Blacklock Jewellery uses government reports, OECD reports, other information sources, and insights from suppliers and stakeholders to assess country risk.
Grounds for exclusion are as follows:
- Any country where there is declared conflict.
- Any country where there may be documented (but not declared) armed conflict may be excluded.
- Sanctions targets and regulations imposed by the United Nations Security Council, the European Union, and the UK government.
- Any country where Blacklock Jewellery has serious concerns about basic human rights, and/or the application of due diligence required and acceptable practices.
Blacklock Exclusion List
As of 31st July 2024
This list has been developed in accordance with the Blacklock Jewellery Exclusion policy.
Exclusions
Blacklock Jewellery will not accept products sourced from the following countries, as of the date of this policy, which are known to be significant sources of diamonds, gold, and/or gemstones (subject to review in the future if circumstances should change):
- Afghanistan
- Central African Republic
- Democratic Republic of Congo
- Myanmar (Burma) - December 2017 to present
- Zimbabwe
- Russia
Blacklock Jewellery reserves the right to change this list at their discretion and is monitoring, ongoing, the risks in other countries where conditions may pose a risk to human rights, where diamond, gold, or gemstone trading may be subjected to corrupt or unethical practices, and in some cases even fuel conflict as per its Exclusion Policy.