The word “diamond” originates from the Greek word, “adamas,” meaning unconquerable. It is quite fitting that a diamond is the sturdiest natural mineral known to man. Customarily, these gems have been a symbol of affluence of money and love. A deeper look into a diamond shows a world of poverty and malignancy. Globally, people gawk at and desire these milky-white stones, but have never heard of the diamond’s source Sierra Leone, or other major producers. “Blood diamonds” or “conflict diamonds” are diamonds that are illegally mined and traded by rebel groups to fund militias, who seek to antagonize the government. To fully understand the influence of these gems, and essentially understand their role in violence, it is important to note where they originate.
Conflict diamonds are usually associated with African countries, like Angola, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe. Of course, diamonds were around for about a century, but it wasn’t until the 1990’s when the stones popped into the minds of international thinkers. Diamonds financed both civil wars in Angola and Sierra Leone; and ever since that period, diamond-connected violence in Africa has been monumentally out of control. Severe human rights abuses include torture, child labor, and environmental destruction.
If we agree with the assumption that human rights are moral rights, we are agreeing with Joel Feinberg’s influential idea of moral rights being morally valid claims. The conditions for possessing a right can be broken down as follows: someone has a human right when the individual has a claim to something and against someone that is validated by moral principles. Feinberg’s characterization of Nowheresville, where its inhabitants do not have the concept of a right and live their everyday life not understanding the value of that right, is similar to diamond-conflicted African countries. Nowheresville is used as a depiction to show how a society that lacks these accessories is morally handicapped.
In this paper, I seek to establish a relationship between the concept of rights and the moral virtue of respect. Human rights are necessary for respect to be displayed between beings. Thus rights play a vital role in morally evaluating a society, especially in diamond-conflicted countries. These milky-white stones could have a bloody past symbolizing mistreatment and abuse. People near the military-controlled fields live in anxiety and poverty, benefitting little from the abundance of diamonds in the soil they live on. The beneficiaries of this diamond wealth are mainly members of military or officials in within an inner circle of politics or other form of power. These entities try to use diamond revenue to maintain their grip on power, regardless the targeted international sanctions and backlash against them. By the end of this paper, two vital questions will be answered: What are human rights and do groups have human rights?
A Blood-Stained Background
After the increase of human abuses committed by African rebel groups fueled by diamond riches, an international body instituted by the United Nations was founded in hopes that both diamond traders and diamond consumers could recognize dirty diamonds to halt their trade. The international body, the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, represents seventy-five countries, including Zimbabwe, and claims to cover 99% of the diamond industry.
In 2007, Zimbabwe became as a breeding ground for diamond smuggling. However, the Zimbabwe government, under control of authoritarian President Robert Mugabe, time and time again deny these allegations. With more evidence of corruption surfacing over the past few years, the savagery on the Marange diamond fields continues to increase international concern and awareness. Human Rights Watch conducted studies that show that police officers, placed in the diamond fields to monitor and halt the illicit diamond smuggling, were actually the massacres of artisan miners and locals. In October 2008, under the control of President Mugabe, the Zimbabwe military killed over two hundred people in order to gain control of the Marange fields.
Recently, like Human Rights Watch, a Kimberley Process review found that diamonds in eastern Zimbabwe are mined along with serious human rights abuses and corruption. However, the Kimberley Process operates on a consensus. Because its members include Namibia and South Africa, countries that back President Mugabe, the group made the decision not to suspend Zimbabwe or ban the sale of diamonds. The members justified the ruling by calling attention to loophole in the Kimberley Process mandate that defines blood diamonds as “those mined by abusive rebel groups, not abusive governments” (Independent World Report Quarterly, 2010).
Feinberg’s Stance
Morality is the sole source of human rights. Prior to the World War II era, rights were quintessentially strengthened by property, religion, citizenship, race, gender, and characteristics autonomy and sovereignty. Rights were not based mere humanity – the right to life. Feinberg organizes rights into two types: ideal rights and conscientious rights. Both ideal and conscientious rights receive their weight and substance from moral axioms. The two types of rights do differ in their own regards, though. Ideal rights are addressed to governments, and laws are an example of a mechanism that satisfies those rights. Conscientious rights are addressed to private individuals for certain kinds of treatment. Feinberg argues that rights must also be related to respect and self-respect. Given Feinberg’s belief I feel that he would agree that the Kimberley Process is in danger of collapse. He would concur that it is failing in the crux of it’s duty to ensure that blood diamonds will be kept out of markets.
Ongoing abuses continue to stain diamonds in the region. Severe human rights abuses include beatings, torture, and murder. In addition, many of the world’s diamonds are acquired using practices where miners benefit unfairly from the work, through ill-treatment or overworking. These workers in Africa earn less than a dollar a day. Regardless of the promised profit, people are still living in impoverished conditions. In addition, many miners work in unsafe conditions, sometimes lacking training and safety standards. Due to faulty planning and inadequate regulation, diamond mining has environmental detiroriation which adversely affects the soil and water. This irresponsibility by Mugabe’s government has caused deforestation and other environmental harms. This has caused many in Zimbabwe to relocate, with minimal to no government assistance.
In Feinberg’s "The Nature and Value of Human Rights,” Feinberg outlines the importance of possessing human rights by painting a picture of a town called Nowheresville. A town in which no one possesses any rights. As a result, people in this world cannot make moral claims when they are treated with prejudice. They cannot demand or “claim” equitable treatment, thus they are robbed of their own self-respect and dignity – two things that Feinberg deems complementary to basic human rights. Feinberg also evaluates the doctrine of the logical correlativity of rights and duties. This doctrine states that all duties involve others’ rights and all rights involve others’ duties is the doctrine that all duties entail other people’s rights and all rights entails other people’s duties.
“Let us…introduce duties into Nowheresville, but only in the sense of actions that are, or believed to be, morally mandatory, but not in the older sense of actions that are due others and can be claimed by others as their right,” (pp. 176).
By “duties,” Feinberg is referencing that something is due to someone, thus paying our dues is important so others can stake claim to it. It is vital to note that this does not hint at a monetary debt, but rather something which naturally arises from: “the inherent worth of an individual in realizing the relationship between needs and debts or a contract which binds two or more people as to what each other owes to the other.” Due to the lacking duties in Nowheresville, individuals are free to state a harm or wrong acted by an external force, but because no rights or duties exist, there is no moral justification to make such a claim.
Due to severe human rights abuses, it is fair to say that Feinberg would agree these minority and forced labor groups in diamond-conflicted regions deserve to have their human rights upheld. However, they must stake a claim towards them. “The activity of claiming…distinguishes the otherwise morally flawed world from the even worse world of Nowheresville” (158). Feinberg believes that we need to stake claims in order to achieve and maintain our rights. Otherwise, we will have no rights like in Nowheresville (Feinberg).
Recommendations
According to Feinberg, I feel that it is safe to say for a society almost similar to Nowheresville, like Zimbabwe, it is almost to impossible to promote human rights when barely any cease to exist. Thus I believe that it is important to access the main economic and political challenges facing Zimbabwe; and provide counsel in an attempt to improve these peoples’ way of life and to improve relations with other countries. Corruption remains a major economic downfall for the country. The Anti-Corruption Commission is on its last legs and must be reengaged to propose a proper mandate to correct economic corruption. An economic task force of some sort should also be established to bring various officials together to discuss how to lift the country out of the current economic crisis. Most importantly, Feinberg would agree that public awareness of this issue should be made especially in the West.