Is it morally wrong for the retailers to buy diamonds if they cannot

determine whether these diamonds are conflict free?

If a retailer is buying diamonds and can not determine whether they are conflict free or not, then
they are supporting civil war and the brutality of the rebels who took over diamond mines
throughout parts of Africa. If you agree that what the rebels are doing is immoral and inhumane
then so should purchasing diamonds that can not be guaranteed to be free of this conflict. With
large buyer and sellers achieving a failure rate of 83% for implementing The Kimberly Proccess,
which establishes basic measures to ensure diamonds are conflict free, it is impossible to justify
purchasing from them.

Every person has a duty to choose the morally correct action when confronted with a choice
involving the possibility of supporting inhumane actions of others or not. The probability of
purchasing conflict diamonds in this scenario is to high to leave any option of purchasing
diamonds from these negligent organizations. A retailer who specializes in a certain field can be
assumed to have an intimate knowledge of their product. Consumers purchase from these
individuals partly because of this specialized knowledge, there for a retailer has a duty to ensure
that their actions and conscience are in line with that of their customers as well.

You might ask why should a small retailer be responsible for the possibility of purchasing
diamonds that might be financing civil unrest in a country across the globe. They are providing a
commodity that people are willing to buy. Consumers are somewhat aware that diamonds are not
always obtained in the most ethical circumstances but the industry continues to flourish. The
average consumer does not seem to care, the large buyers and sellers perhaps dont care
enough to be able to properly implement measures to ensure conflict free diamonds, why should
it fall on the shoulders of a small middle man?

Public perception of diamonds is too heavily influenced by marketing and tradition. Although
people are aware that there may be conflict around a product, there is no screaming controversy.
It is not as if you are wanting to buy a mink coat and have to walk through a crowd of jeering
protesters. The general public can therefore justify buying diamonds to themselves because if it
were truly wrong they wouldn't be able to purchase them at all. This does not make it ok for the
general public to purchase diamonds of unknown origin, it just illustrates why retailers cannot rely
on the public's conscience. If retailers continue purchasing diamond knowing full well that only
17% of the stock on average can be conflict free and they do not inform their customers they
become just as guilty as The World Diamond Council for propagating deceit to the general public.
We may ask ourselves, why should the retailer not rely on the large companies that buy and sell
diamonds to ensure they are conflict free. They have already taken steps in the right direction
with the Kimberly Process, and as the system gets better so will the assurances of conflict free
diamonds.

Retailers cannot rely on large companies who created the World Diamond Council to ensure
diamonds are conflict free. These companies only developed the Kimberly Process fearing
consumer backlash instead of being concerned of the inhumane methods used to mine
diamonds. This suggests these companies solely care about profits and not the betterment of the
industry for all. With their failure rate of 83 percent it further goes to show this was only done for
publicity. For all we know, before the kimberley process was in place, 17% of the diamonds were
already conflict free and they have just maintained the status quo.

We use diamonds for many things besides jewelry. They are critical for creating tools for the
mining industry, many cutting tools and drills. If society's need for diamonds is high enough could
we not argue that mining diamonds is for the greater good and that diamonds bought and sold for
aesthetic purposes are done so alongside the main reason for mining them.
The problem with this is that diamonds are found all around the world where there can be a
guaranteed lack of conflict. According to Paul Zimnisky, Synthetic diamonds represent over 99%
of the industrial-quality diamonds used for commercial purposes, and typically used diamonds too
small for jewelers to use for retail.

What about the retailer who has been purchasing diamonds from the same distributor for years
whom in turn received them from places that at the time were not involved in conflict but sadly did
eventually. They are just continuing on in their fashion, they have not changed anything, and it
was not their fault that the region they bought diamonds from fell into this conflict.

The fact is this retailers have a choice. There is still the option to only purchase the 17 percent of
diamonds from the World Diamond Council that are known to be conflict free. There are other
countries that produce diamonds that you can purchase from, and then you can ethically cater to
your customers needs, not just for a luxury good but also to their own conscience. It is hard to
find a coffee shop today that does not advertise their ethically fair traded coffee beans, why
shouldn't consumers be just as morally justified buying a diamond as a cup of coffee.

Zimnisky, Paul. "Global Rough Diamond Production Estimated to Hit Over 135M Carats in
2015 - Paul Zimnisky | Diamond Industry Analysis."Global Rough Diamond Production
Estimated to Hit Over 135M Carats in 2015 - Paul Zimnisky | Diamond Industry Analysis.
Paulzimnisky.com, 6 Feb. 2015. Web. 2 Dec. 2015.

Naylor, R.T. "The Political Economy of Diamonds." Global Research. Counterpunch.org, 19

Mar. 2007. Web. 2 Dec. 2015.

Alexander, Larry. "Deontological Ethics." Stanford University. Stanford University, 21 Nov.

2007. Web. 2 Dec. 2015.