Conflict Diamonds

Attempt Any Two Of the following ( 60 Marks - 30 Marks each ) | | Case 1 | Conflict Diamonds | | | During the late 1990s South African diamond product De Beers and other companies on the diamond industry discovered that some of the diamonds they were buying or selling came from groups who used the proceeds to finance brutal civil wars. In Sierra Leone, rebels took control of diamond mines by systematically chopping off the arms and hands of as many as 20,000 children, women and men until the diamond operations were turned over to them. Similarly events took place at diamond mines in Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. About 4 million civilians have died in the civil wars financed by the diamonds. Anxious to avoid a consumer boycott of “conflict diamonds” DeBeers and other diamond companies in 2000 formed the World Diamond Council, a group made up of buyers and sellers of diamonds that pledged to use the “Kimberley Process” to track diamonds from the mine to the jewelry shop to ensure that diamonds they sold customers were “conflict-free”. However in 2004, Global Witness, a watch dog group, published “Broken Vows” a report of a survey it conducted which concluded that “83 percent of diamond companies surveyed are falling short on implementing the basic measures” of the 2000 agreement to keep conflict diamonds from getting mixed in with non-conflict diamonds. | | Q1 a) | Is it morally wrong for retail stores to knowingly buy diamonds if not possible for them to determine whether they are conflict diamonds or not? Is it morally wrong for customers to do the same? Explain your answers in terms of utilitarianism*, rights and justice

(*Utilitarianism – A system of ethics according to which the rightness or wrongness of an action should be judged by its consequences. The goal of utilitarian ethics is to promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number. ) | | | | | Case 2 | New Balance and the “Made in USA” Label | | |
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