CELEBRATING 100 YEARS OF INTERCONNECTEDNESS
‘Standards used to concentrate on product categories. But they were joined by others focusing on standards of behavior that are incumbent on all members of our industry, irrespective of the area of the business in which they are involved.’
Gaetano Cavalieri is President of the World Jewellery Confederation (CIBJO). Uniting national jewelry and gemstone associations from more than 45 countries, and including many of the industry’s major corporations and international associations, it is the industry’s oldest international body, having been established in 1926, 100 years ago.
In 2006, he was responsible for CIBJO receiving “Special Consultative Status” with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), making it the first and only jewelry and gemstone representative to be officially recognized by the international body.
AUGUST 26, 2026
Next Friday, September 4, 2026, I’ll be welcoming in Vicenza, Italy, what almost certainly will be the largest and most representative group of jewelry industry leaders and opinion makers ever to assemble in one place.
They’ll be coming for the Centenary Congress of the organization I am privileged to head — the World Jewellery Confederation, or CIBJO, as it’s best known. We’ll not simply be celebrating a birthday but, even more so our interconnected and codependent industry.
One hundred years ago, jewelry and its component parts were traded across borders with very few common rules. Terminology varied from country to country, standards were inconsistent and misunderstandings were frequent. A diamond, pearl or colored stone might be described one way in Paris and quite another way in London or New York. Disputes over quality, description and value were commonplace.
There was those even then who believed that fine jewelry, if properly marketed, could become a mass-consumed product. Remember this was a time that predated the groundbreaking “Diamond is Forever” campaign that sent sales of diamond engagement rings into the stratosphere.
To make such growth possible, and just as important sustainable, public confidence was essential. For that we needed clarity, consistency and a shared professional language.
A BIBOA congress in Paris in 1928, two years after the establishment of organization. Seated fourth from right on the podium is Carel Joseph Anton Begeer, the prominent Dutch silversmith who served as president from 1926 to 1956.
From a European to a global organization
Allow me to provide a bit of history.
In April 1926, a group of European jewelry industry leaders created an association that they called the Bureau International de la Bijouterie, Orfèvrerie, Argenterie (International Bureau of Jewelry, Goldsmithing and Silverware Trades). Known as BIBOA, it was the seed from which CIBJO would eventually grow.
Like CIBJO, BIBOA’s membership was made up of organizations rather than individuals, and it also held congresses at which members gathered. My predecessor and its first and only president until he died in 1956 was one of Europe’s leading silversmiths, Carel Joseph Anton Begeer of the Netherlands.
During those early congresses, BIBOA established some of the world’s first unified trade protocols for gemstone disclosure. Rules were enacted that obliged members to reveal the use of dyes used to artificially color gemstones, and others that dictated agreed-to language to describe natural, synthetic, treated and simulant materials.
But the world was changing, as was European centrality within it. At its congress in 1961, BIBOA was formally disbanded and restructured as the Confédération Internationale de la Bijouterie, Joaillerie, Orfèvrerie des Diamants, Perles et Pierres—which quickly was shortened to CIBJO for short. New bylaws were adopted that opened membership beyond Europe, allowing nations from the Americas, Asia, Africa and Oceania to join the assembly.
CIBJO’s Jewelry Industry Supply Chain Nomenclature Committee in session in Shanghai, China, at the CIBJO Congress in November 2024. The committee was formed at the initiative of the author and Feriel Zerouki, WDC’s Honorary President, to create The Blue List, a set of recommended terms to describe responsible supply chains when marketing jewelry and its components.
Up to standard
For a long while, CIBJO was regarded mainly a standards-setting body, whose primary mission was to create universal benchmarks and terminology for the jewelry industry.
The first of them were introduced in 1968, and initially they were contained in three separate guides — a gemstone book with a blue cover, a diamond book with a gray cover and a pearl book with a green cover. They soon came to be referred to collectively as the Blue Books.
In 2007, CIBJO launched the Precious Metals Blue Book, followed in 2010 by the CIBJO Gemological Laboratory Book. The CIBJO Coral Book was added in 2015, and in 2019 the Responsible Sourcing Blue Book was introduced, reflecting growing global concern about ethical supply chains.
That work continues. Over the past six years, a cross-industry committee that I established together with Feriel Zerouki, today WDC’s Honorary President, compiled what we called The Blue List, which is a set of marketing terms that can be fairly used — and also terms that should not be used — to describe responsible supply chains and their products.
It was a painstaking but fascinating project, which was twice was subject to public review. At the upcoming Centenary Congress, we are confident it will be formally approved and released for use immediately thereafter.
Changing the paradigm
I was already serving as CIBJO President when in 2006 we became the first and only organization in the diamond, gemstone and jewelry sectors to receive official consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. That same year, we joined the UN Global Compact.
At our congress the following year, flanked by the Vice President of South Africa and mining ministers from across the African continent, I read what we came to call the Cape Town Declaration, which recognized “that the jewelry industry, as a member of the international business community, shares a responsibility toward the greater society in seeking practical solutions toward the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, as well as to developing a global partnership for development.”
It was a watershed moment, for it broadened the responsible sourcing paradigm that had been created just a few years earlier along with the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme. That essentially had required our industry to avoid doing the wrong thing, but in Cape Town we committed ourselves to proactively improving the lives of all our stakeholders, and especially those living in underdeveloped areas that produce our raw materials.
It changed the way we think and operate. Standards used to concentrate on product categories. But they were joined by others focusing on standards of behavior that are incumbent on all members of our industry, irrespective of the area of the business in which they are involved.
The author at the CIBJO Congress in South Africa in April 2007, alongside the country’s then-Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. It was there that CIBJO approved the Cape Town Declaration, committing the jewelry industry to proactively improving the lives of all our stakeholders, and especially those living in underdeveloped areas that produce its raw materials.
What’s our secret to longevity?
What is it that has enabled CIBJO, in its evolving form, to remain relevant for 100 years, and to be in a position today that is most probably stronger than at any point in its long history? There are probably a great many factors, but I will mention just a few.
The first is the character of the people who make up our business sector, and the sense of responsibility to community and collective destiny that seems to be an integral part of our DNA. As you will understand from what I have written, a massive body of work has been produced and continues to be produced within and by CIBJO. Responsible for it are a great many individuals who gave of their time voluntarily. All our officeholders, and commission and committee members, who invest many hundreds of hours each year, do so absolutely pro bono. I am not sure there is any other industry that can rely on such a human resource, and it has benefited CIBJO, just as it has benefited our sister organizations, like the World Diamond Council.
The second is our understanding that our overriding mission is to protect consumer confidence in our products and our industry. Let’s be clear: We deal in nonessential luxury products that our consumers can live without. If we lose their confidence, the entire foundation on which we stand will crumble. Simply stated, we cannot afford to fail.
Members of CIBJO gather at the United Nation headquarters in Geneva in October 2007, where they met with UN Officials to discuss the creation of an industry-wide Corporate Social Responsibility program.
Third is our operational principle of continuous improvement. We strive for perfection but know that we will never achieve it. Doing something is better than doing nothing, and it always can be improved. We say that every standard or principle we formulate is expressed in a living document. The moment it is approved and released for public consumption, work begins on its new and improved successor.
And fourth, and today probably most important, the interconnectedness and codependency I referred earlier is a strength rather than a weakness for CIBJO, because we provide the single forum for all participants to gather, talk, sometimes argue and plan ahead — from miners to pearl farmers, precious coral harvesters, rough gem dealers, precious metal refiners, jewelry designers and manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, gem labs, technology companies, banks and journalists.
It’s been said before, but I will repeat it: If CIBJO didn’t exist, someone would have to invent it.
I hope to see a great many of you next week in Italy.