jesse merle

Got a new article up on Triple Pundit:

Responsible Jewelry: The Search for Credibility

With the failures of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), as evidenced by ongoing human rights abuses in Zimbabwe, pressure is building for mining and jewelry companies to become transparent, accountable, and fair. But will the new certification systems be credible?

At this year’s Fair Trade Diamond Conference in Las Vegas, discussion of competing certification systems was rigorous. At one table sat a representative from the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC); at another sat a representative from the Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM). Both organizations are establishing vital new standards for socially responsible—or in ARM’s case Fair Trade—gems and precious metals. But their divergent approaches highlight the importance of involving local stakeholders in creating standards that are effective and credible.

RJC, a participant in the United Nations Global Compact initiative, has nearly completed its standards for certification of large-scale mining operations and is seeking input from civil society mining organizations that promote social and environmental justice. RJC standards would require sensible practices like protecting ecosystem biodiversity and ensuring that “the interests and development aspirations of affected communities are considered.”

Yet several leading NGOs have declined to endorse RJC’s process and operation, describing it as “industry-led and industry-governed.” In a disapproving letter to RJC, civil society organizations, including Earthworks, OxFam, Global Witness, and CAFOD, sight such critical issues as the lack of independent, third-party certification, and the absence of local and community stakeholder involvement . These organizations further caution that RJC “continues to omit key requirements for more responsible mining,” notably:

• Respect for the right of free, prior, and informed consent for indigenous peoples (per ILO 169)
• Community consent for resettlement
• No-go areas for biodiversity conservation
• Protection of natural water bodies from tailings disposal.

ARM offers a different approach than RJC. Working exclusively with artisanal and small-scale mining operations, ARM, together with Fairtrade Labeling Organizations International (FLO), is nearing completion of the first Fair Trade standards for gold, and is also requesting consultation from various stakeholders including the public at large. ARM was inspired by the decade-long work of Oro Verde, a small ecologically-oriented gold mine in Colombia whose members actually helped form ARM. Indeed, ARM has integrated small-scale miners fully into the process, including as board members and technical advisors.

ARM’s intimate relationship with the local miners and focus on biodiversity leads to more comprehensive standards. For instance, ARM standards firmly adhere to ILO 169 and require “respect for local cultural practices in order to reach agreements with the local traditional authority and community.” ARM’s standards underwent three rounds of public consultation, included face-to-face workshops and learning sessions at local and global levels, and was posted in four languages on ARM’s website. Furthermore, unlike RJC, ARM is taking a chain-of-custody approach to certification, which means that ARM and FLO will be able to track the gold from mine to market.

The result, as Sonya Maldar, a policy analyst at CAFOD and signatory to the RJC letter, explained in a recent phone conversation, is a more legitimate and effective certification system:

“Consumers [of ARM/FLO certified Fair Trade gold] will be able to trust that the artisanal and small-scale miners were not left out of the process. ARM works directly with small-scale miners to help them organize and set up projects, and FLO is ensuring that the miners receive a premium for their product.”

While the RJC and ARM are not entirely comparable (RJC works with large-scale mines and ARM works with small-scale mines), their approaches can certainly be contrasted. Engaging the local populations, as ARM does, adds significant credibility and legitimacy to their standards—and it’s not going unnoticed. Other large-scale mining certification schemes are following ARM’s lead. RJC competitor, the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA), has taken a rigorous multi-stakeholder approach in establishing its standards and has earned the support of many of the same NGOs that declined to endorse RJC.

For jewelry and mining companies truly serious about maintaining credibility with consumers, it is critical that their certification standards involve miners at the local level from the very beginning. Credibility can no longer be fabricated—it must be earned.

[My first at triplepundit.]

Zimbabwe: Why Credible 3rd Party Certification Still Matters

Think your “Conflict Free” diamond is conflict free? Think again.

The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), the well-known initiative attempting to “stem” the trade and sale of conflict diamonds, has been dealt several recent, serious blows to its credibility. Between new revelations of violence in Zimbabwe’s diamond fields, increasing evidence of diamond smuggling and fraud in Venezuela, Lebanon, and Guinea, and the recent condemnatory departure of one of KPCS’s founders, Ian Smillie, it is clear that the KPCS leaves a lot of room for improvement and innovation.

On Friday, Human Rights Watch released a damning report accusing KPCS member state Zimbabwe of “engaging in the forced labor of children and adults” and “torturing and beating local villagers on the diamond fields of Marange district in eastern Zimbabwe.” HRW reports that the military, still controlled by the country’s former ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), “killed more than 200 people in a violent takeover of the diamond fields in late 2008.”

Zimbabwe is responding defiantly to such claims. During last week’s biannual KPCS meeting in Namibia, Zimbabwe’s mining minister addressed the growing concerns of the KPCS delegates that illegally mined diamonds are entering the pipeline, arguing that military action was necessary to curb illegal mining in the Marange fields, and pointing out that this is a goal shared by the KPCS. Indeed, in April, a high level KPCS envoy team hailed their visit with Zimbabwe’s mining ministers as a “great success,” reiterating their commitment “to help contain the illicit Marange diamond.” (.pdf)

On Monday, following HRW’s allegations, another KPCS team began a new probe of the country’s diamond industry. However, speaking with reporters, Zimbabwe’s mining secretary asserted that “Marange diamonds do not fall within KPCS definition of conflict diamonds” because “under the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, conflict diamonds are rough diamonds used by rebel movements or their allies to finance conflict armies at undermining legitimate governments,” and “there is no armed conflict or any involvement of a rebel army or movement in Zimbabwe.” A day earlier, on Sunday, sources told UPI that the Zimbabwean government “arrested and jailed a member of Parliament who intended to reveal an alleged mass grave site of diamond miners” to KPCS officials.

Ian Smillie, one of the most influential architects of the KPCS, and chairman of the Diamond Development Initiative (DDI), also cited Zimbabwe in his farewell letter to members as an example of why he has lost confidence in the KPCS. Zimbabwe, Smillie argues, is one instance among many in which the KPCS has basically proven itself useless:

“I feel that I can no longer in good faith contribute to a pretense that failure is success, or to the kind of debates we have been reduced to… I thought in 2003 that we had created something significant. In fact we did, but we have let it slip away from us. The KP has been confronted by many challenges in the past five years, and it has failed to deal quickly or effectively with most of them… In each case the issue has had to become a media debacle before the KP would deal with it (if at all)… Perhaps worse, we refuse to deal with human rights abuse in alluvial diamond mining, surely a fundamental issue for a body that aims to stop “blood” diamonds. For every hour we spend dealing with issues of pro-forma KP compliance, we devote four hours to argument about why and how to avoid real issues. We patrol country roads for jay-walkers, and ignore serious crime in our own back yard.
…

There is a basic truth: When regulators fail to regulate, the systems they were designed to protect collapse. In this case, the diamond industry, which means so much to so many, is being ill served by what has become a complacent and almost completely ineffectual Kimberley Process. Without a genuine wakeup call and the growth of some serious regulatory teeth, it leaves the industry exposed, vulnerable and perhaps, in the end, unworthy of protection.”

The situation in Zimbabwe underscores the importance of a serious and comprehensive certification system for diamonds capable of putting timely and effective pressure on non-complying members. Many in the industry see this moment as a critical credibility test for the “almost completely ineffectual” KPCS, which can ill afford to loose any more trust. Indeed, alternative mining, trade, and certification systems for diamonds, such as Fair Trade Certification, are already well on their way.

The KPCS offers yet another example that the credibility of our third party regulatory systems cannot be overstated.

After sending my extending family a recent Kevin Drum post about torture and civilization, I received several replies from conservative members of my family intent on rationalizing the use of torture. First, the ticking time bomb. Second, impossible to define torture. Third, a full-on leap into moral relativism. Naturally, I pushed back.

Well, for my aunt, that was the last straw. (On second thought, I’m not sure she actually understood anything I was saying.) She wrote back a pretty nasty little letter in which she informed me that my opposition to torture is naive because I “live in the world of academia and theory.” Seriously? Since when?

I have written (but not sent) a response to her, although I did publish it openly here, for the benefit of all. I decided not to send it to her because I thought it was time to drop the conversation. To escalate it further would have opened up a world of drama, and to be honest, not worth it. So the email I actually sent just thanked her for her thoughts and time so as to move on. But it feels good to publish my thoughts here… who knows, maybe someday she’ll stumble on this… not likely.

Without further ado, here is my aunt’s letter to me (itals) with my unsent responses underneath (bold). Both are unedited for the full experience and, I think, provide a unique window into how Americans are wrestling with the idea of torture.

(Warning: This does get a little personal, and I do try to stick up for myself here without sounding too righteous. OK, maybe just a little; after all, I am arguing against torture.)

__________

Hi Aunt XXXX,

Thanks again for your thoughts. This is good stuff — what a great discussion! See my responses below…

Love,
Jesse

I’m replying to you only because your Grandfather doesn’t want to deal with this anymore, and no one else has responded publicly. If you are going to respond, please do so to just me.

I’m not sure I understand the reason for keeping this conversation just between us — like you say, we’re each pretty rooted in our beliefs. But I have gotten words of support and wisdom from everyone, including most recently my grandparents in Nebraska. I think this topic is sometimes difficult for people to discuss publicly (I have friends who don’t feel comfortable or knowledgeable enough to offer an opinion) but people still appreciate following the conversation. But that’s OK, I realize Grampa wants to move on.

The idea that we, as American’s, should take our moral standards and push them onto other societies is frightening.

For years Republicans have justified the invasion of Iraq because America was bringing liberty to oppressed Iraqis. I’m not arguing that America should push our moral standards on foreign cultures. I don’t support colonial hegemony. I’m not arguing to invade a nation in order to ‘liberate’ it. I’m just arguing that there can be (and is) a universal definition of torture, and we should adhere to our laws and international obligations which define torture. The Bush lawyers ignored these obligations when they tried to rewrite the definition of torture — that’s why they’re under investigation.

Which morals do we put on them? Yours or mine?

Neither of ours, Aunt XXXX. That’s the point. The story of human history is one of striving to advance civilization. It’s only been within the last few hundred years that the world has been able to agree that there are certain moral absolutes that should be applied universally to all people. These aren’t American morals, or even the Western morals… consensus comes from years of working across national and cultural borders. One example is the United Nations Convention Against Torture. Our legal system must be better than the basest of human instinct and temptation.

Many Republicans continue to argue that abortion should be illegal because it’s immoral, that gay marriage should be illegal because it is immoral, that marijuana should be illegal because it’s immoral, that there can be no assisted suicide because it’s immoral… But when it comes to torture, all of a sudden there’s gray area? Sometimes it’s moral to torture? I don’t understand. How is it more important to stand firm on gay marriage than torture?

Why is it “politically incorrect” to have a belief system that might not fit perfectly into a progressive agenda? This is how you develop your own beliefs! Who determines these “politically correct” beliefs?

The reason it can sometimes be awkward for me, as a progressive, to discuss moral absolutes (like why I oppose torture, or honor killings, or forced female circumcision, or the death penalty) is because I believe in embracing diversity and tolerance. It has nothing to do with any ‘agenda.’ Some have mistaken this embrace of tolerance for diverse cultures to mean that we must accept every value system as equally valid; some go so far as to say that it is inappropriate, even politically incorrect, to for us to judge another culture’s moral standards. I do not believe this. I believe there are moral absolutes—A society that condones honor killings, slavery, rape, torture, etc (rejecting international consensus) is less civilized than a society that denounces these actions. And I am free to judge because I believe there are moral absolutes.

In a perfect world, where everyone’s goal is similar, your beliefs might work. Many have tried.

My belief that violence begets violence is hardly controversial. My belief in the efficacy of peaceful conflict resolution is based on the most successful political and social movements in history: Gandhi’s march for democracy, or the fight to end slavery and protect civil rights, the woman’s suffrage movement, etc. And broadly speaking, humanity shares the same goals, much as we share the same morals — indeed, America is founded on the very principle that free people can live peacefully and achieve happiness together.

You live in the world of academia and theory. It’s not wrong, but it is only one viewpoint…

The idea that I live in some sort of ivory tower of theoretical academia, divorced from real reality, is disingenuous. Take a step back — I’m 26 years old, and I’ve spent years living and working with the world’s poorest people in destitute villages all over the world: India, Asia, Eastern Europe, Australia, Central America, with new projects in West Africa and Brazil. I’ve dedicated my life to fighting for social justice within the truly harsh realities of the most marginalized and desperate people. To imply that I don’t understand how the world really works, as if I live in liberal la-la land, is absurd.

My beliefs are rooted in myriad on-the-ground experiences and in listening to anyone who will speak with me — In my short life I’ve interviewed and met with indigenous leaders from around the world, Nobel scientists, corporate CEOs, authors, CIA officers, congressmen, war crimes prosecutors, torture survivors, Gitmo guards, Iraqi and Iranian refugees, Hasidic settlers, human rights activists, international aid workers, and US Generals… and I’ve come to believe that there are certain elements of morality that are basic to humanity across time, place, and culture. There are moral absolutes. This is not some sort of academic trickery.

…as you should be able to see from both your Grandpa’s response and mine. The fact that not everyone in your family agrees with you should tell you that maybe things aren’t as obvious as you believe, and that maybe there is a great deal of that gray.

People disagree, true, but I’m not sure there’s as much disagreement as it seems. I mean, to ask you directly: Do you believe there are no moral absolutes? Do you believe that all value systems are equally valid?

I could take each one of your comments and provide an argument back, but ultimately it will be my time spent reaffirming what I believe and your time spent trying to figure out how to convince me otherwise.

My life and career is dedicated to social justice, so I’m obviously more than happy to continue this conversation in more detail. This is also why I think it’s good to include more people in these discussions.

You threw out a question, but it appears that you already were firm in your beliefs.

To clarify, I didn’t throw out a question. I put forth a statement of firm belief (civilized societies don’t condone torture), to which people reacted.

Enjoy life. Humanity will survive!

I do, I do. And of course, humanity will survive! In fact, it will be stronger for having gone through these moral tests, and for having had these conversations.

I recently sent my extended family a Kevin Drum post explaining that civilized societies do not torture. Well, several family members disagreed and were offering arguments rationalizing their positions. After batting down the insidious ticking time bomb scenario, I then provided them with Reagan’s definition of torture when he signed the UN Convention Against Torture: “…severe pain or suffering…” This really pissed them off.

My Aunt’s response went full monty. Jumping in with both feet, she challenges the very idea that torture can even be defined:

Reagan’s definition is actually legalese meant to appease — and only that…

One person’s torture is another’s discomfort, and it really means nothing. Is sleep deprivation torture? Loud music? Where is that line? Do we have to adjust our definition based on regional or religious beliefs?…

When you talk about morals, whose moral high ground do we use? Yours or mine? What does “civilized” really mean? Are the Iranians barbaric because they stone and behead? In their world, that is the moral thing to do, but are they less civilized than you? And who are we to judge?…

I have a strong set of beliefs, but sometimes I change my mind. Life is not black and white, but many, many shades of gray, and it’s constantly changing.

Wow. When did Republican’s become moral relativists??? This seems like a serious political shift. For years we were told that the Republicans were the party of morals, that Republicans knew right from wrong. Now all of a sudden there’s gray area?

Trust me, it only gets better… here is my response. (OK, so I may have played a small role in stirring this thing up.):

I have a hard time with the argument that one person’s torture is another person’s discomfort. I don’t think it is so ambivalent or relative. Torture is “severe pain or suffering…” — and discomfort is, well, just discomfort. I sometimes have to remind myself that these words actually mean something – they have agreed-upon definitions, so that you and I have a similar understanding of what “severe pain or suffering” means… and it doesn’t mean discomfort.

Can sleep deprivation be employed as torture? Absolutely — after all, the CIA’s own KUBARK manual describes how sleep and sensory deprivation (and a number of other techniques) can be used to induce intense mental and physical suffering that if not controlled can lead to psychosis or even schizophrenia. (We can all thank those liberal university professors for teaching the CIA about psychological torture… you know, the kind that doesn’t leave marks.) Of course, I do not consider all sleep deprivation to be torture, just when it is the method used to induce “severe pain or suffering…”.

Similarly, the definition of torture doesn’t change depending on who is being tortured — “severe pain and suffering” doesn’t change depending on one’s ethnicity, or gender, or age, or religious views, or political persuasions. There’s not one definition of “severe pain and suffering” for Jews and another definition of “severe pain and suffering” for Muslims. It is universal. It is absolute. And it applies to the act, not the participants.

It can feel weird for me, as a progressive, to take the ‘politically incorrect’ position of saying that not all value systems are equally valid. But I am not a moral relativist. So yes, I can say without flinching that cultures which condone honor killings (or hate crimes) are barbaric. Just as I can say that cultures that condone torture are barbaric. I’m free to judge because I don’t believe in moral relativism — my experiences as an anthropologist (and human), working and living in little villages all over the world, has led me to believe there are certain elements of morality that are basic to humanity across time, place, and culture. (To be clear, the vast majority of Iranians condemn honor killings… it’s hardly “the moral thing to do”.)

Read on: Well, for my aunt, that was the last straw. She sent back a pretty nasty little letter, “You live in the world of academia and theory…“

OK, I guess I was asking for it… I definitely know better.

A few days ago I emailed my extended family a recent Kevin Drum post, Torture and Civilization. (Note to self: Don’t!) I found it quite thought provoking, and I got the urge to share it. What followed gave me a fascinating view into the thoughts of people, who, for one reason or another, find themselves defending (or at least rationalizing) the use of torture.

Here is a portion of Kevin’s argument:

The whole point of civilization is as much moral advancement as it is physical and technological advancement.  But that moral progress comes slowly and very, very tenuously.  In the United States alone, it took centuries to decide that slavery was evil, that children shouldn’t be allowed to work 12-hour days on power looms, and that police shouldn’t be allowed to beat confessions out of suspects.

On other things there’s no consensus yet.  Like it or not, we still make war, and so does the rest of the world.  But at least until recently, there was a consensus that torture is wrong.  Full stop.  It was the practice of tyrants and barbarians.  But like all moral progress, the consensus on torture is tenuous, and the only way to hold on to it — the only way to expand it — is by insisting absolutely and without exception that we not allow ourselves to backslide.  Human nature being what it is — savage, vengeful, and tribal — the temptations are just too great.  Small exceptions will inevitably grow into big ones, big ones into routine ones, and the progress of centuries is undone in an eyeblink.

Somebody else could explain this better than me.  But the consensus against torture is one of our civilization’s few unqualified moral advances, and it’s a consensus won only after centuries of horror and brutality.  We just can’t lose it.

Right? I mean, isn’t that well thought out? Well, I should have known better than to send it to my extended family — these things never end nicely. First, I got the question from Grampa:

“How far do we go to force the criminal to tell us where he has planted the bomb that will kill thousands of innocents if not disabled?”

Oh boy. I shared my take on the insidious ticking time bomb scenario: It distorts our thinking and relies on assumptions that fail under real world examination… basically, it only exists in our heads. Among the false premises: the torture will work, and there are no alternatives to torture. (I threw in a couple of links for good measure: NPR’s “Critics Skeptical Of Made-For-TV Torture Claims” and Stephen Griffin’s “Torture and the Ticking Time Bomb” at Balkinization.)

Then my winger aunt piped in:

“It seems to me that the meaning of torture needs to be defined first. It may mean something very different to me than it does to you. So, what is torture to you?”

I replied that there is long legal precedent on torture, both in US domestic and international law, and that it doesn’t really matter what her or my definition is because this has been decided through hundreds of years of legal and moral tradition. Of course I said more than that, and just for fun, I added that I support Reagan’s definition of torture when he signed the Convention Against Torture:

“Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.”

Read on: At this my aunt went full monty. Jumping in with both feet, she challenges the very idea that torture can even be defined: “One person’s torture is another’s discomfort…“