A vast array of consumer products, including diamonds, timber, coffee, and rugs, have been linked to environmental and social harm around the world. Diamonds, for example, have financed global terrorist operatives such as Al Qaeda, and have perpetuated armed conflict and civil wars that have caused the death of more than three million people and driven more than six million people from their homes. The diamond-fueled civil war in Sierra Leone, in which a rebel insurgency group forcibly conscripted over 12, children, hacked off the limbs of over 20, people, and committed abductions, rapes, and murders against civilians, illustrated for the world the gruesome realities surrounding conflict diamonds. Similarly, timber sales have helped to sustain oppressive dictatorships, civil wars, and human rights violations in countries such as Cambodia, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Coffee production in Latin America has involved the vast clearing of tree cover, eliminating crucial wildlife habitat. Hand-woven rugs from India and Pakistan have been produced using child labor. These examples, and countless others, have illustrated the linkages between consumer products and global humanitarian and ecological crises and have raised serious ethical issues for consumers, industries, and civil society.

National and international law, to the extent that it exists, has not succeeded in eliminating many of these harmful impacts. Certification has therefore emerged as a new tool that attempts to harness market forces to promote environmental protection, fair labor and fair trade practices, human rights, and conflict-resolution. By identifying raw materials extracted, firms operating, or products produced in an environmentally or socially sustainable way, certification allows consumers to "vote" with their wallets by selecting certified goods and services over other, less desirable alternatives, thus providing incentives for industry to produce these goods and services. Certification systems have emerged in a wide spectrum of industries, including chemicals, coffee, timber, mining, petroleum, fisheries, transportation, apparel, footwear, rugs, and toys, among others.