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“Do unto others as you would have done to you.”

At the recent Rapaport International Diamond Conference, ethicist Peter Singer of Princeton University identified this as a universal standard of ethical conduct among human beings. Whether in the words of Jesus, Hillel, Confucius, or even a local tribal god, almost every religion or ethical tradition on earth has some version of the “Golden Rule,” the dictum for treating others as you would want to be treated yourself.

Unfortunately, when it comes to mineral rights, he who has the gold (or the oil, the coal, or the diamonds) often makes the rules. And treating others well isn’t always part of the code, only power and profits are.

Meanwhile, a Girl Scout maxim is that when one borrows a possession, it should be returned not just in the condition it was received, but better. And when one leaves a place, it should be left better than she found it. So when your Scout troop has a cookout, not only do you clean your own mess, you also collect litter left behind by others and even clear the camping area of sticks, rocks, or other debris.

Extractive mining—whatever the mineral—is both messy and tough. It’s hard on the earth (such as the BP oil spill) and it’s hard on the miners. It’s physically demanding, fraught with danger (as evidenced most recently in Chile), and even if a miner doesn’t fall victim to disaster, he still can fall victim to any of a number of debilitating lung conditions brought on by inhaling minute particles of mineral dust for years on end. And this is before we get to thugs wielding machetes and guns.

Still, mining or drilling can be done responsibly. The fact that mine disasters make international news actually is a bizarre testament to how many mines are safe and don’t collapse or explode on a regular basis. If they did, it would no longer be news. The established mining companies like De Beers, Rio Tinto, and BHP Billiton all have economic sustainability programs in place to mitigate and as much as possible remediate any disruption of the earth, and social responsibility policies for employees and the communities surrounding their mines.

Mineral wealth doesn’t have to fall into the hands of brutes while the miners and citizens starve. In places like Angola and Equatorial Guinea, he who has the gold—or in this case, oil—makes the rules. Dictators grow fat on the profits of oil while the population lives in poverty. But in places like Botswana, diamond wealth has helped to lift an entire nation from the depths of poverty to a standard of living comparable with established countries like Turkey. This is the Girl Scout way: to return an item in the condition you borrowed it and, whenever possible, even better than how you received it.

Diamond brokers, bourse leaders, and dealers say it’s not practical—indeed, virtually impossible—to separate Marange goods from larger parcels. Nonsense, says Michael Conroy. Almost every category that now has Fair Trade products initially pushed back with the exact same argument, but it doesn’t hold water. It just requires pressure farther up the supply chain until compliance is met. Susan Jacques is proving it at Borsheims, and if other high-end retailers take an equally tough stand and refuse to buy any goods that may cause suffering, there will be positive change.

For all the talk about the growth of India and China as consumer markets—make no mistake, they will be forces to reckon with—at present the United States still is by far the leader in diamond consumption in the world, and as such is best positioned to take a definitive stand for right and against wrong. But we have to act; we can’t just talk about acting.

Let’s not squander this opportunity to each be a good Girl Scout and do our own small bit to leave the diamond fields better than they were before we benefited from their wealth. 

By Hedda Schupak,

Editor, The Centurion