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Ba (Hons)

CONSUMER & MARKETING ETHICS

ARMAMENTS

The Arms Trade

The arms trade is a very sensitive topic and one that holds many preconceptions regarding the industry, the governments and the companies who produce them. It has turned into a huge trade, which has become very profitable for many companies who manufacture them for their countries, and for many rich governments who sell them to countries where civilians are deprived of simple human rights because of this. Who is it that decides whether it is ethical or moral to do this, or whether the wealth that is produced by this very industry is worth all that comes from it? Is it not our world leaders? Or is it the immoral assessments made by the companies who produce them, and allow themselves to be dictated to by our governments?

The UK arms exports play a major part of defence industry sales and many people depend on employment generated by these sales. However, many care about the ethics and the human rights viewpoint of the arms trade and in addition, to the extremely controversial issue of one particular armament that is landmines. This will be discussed subsequently.

The people of countries who export arms do not know about the concealed tax costs that they have to pay, and to those countries who import arms (almost always those who are impoverished and economically challenged), do not think about the money taken away from economic development in order to import these weapons. www.controlarms.org, (2001)

Governments in rich countries are happy to sell arms to countries that commit gross violations of human rights, but they aren't quite so accommodating when it comes to welcoming asylum seekers from those same countries.

Deals of Destruction

It seems that nations like the UK and the US cannot see the devastating effects when making deals with countries such as Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, which provides them with weapons and money and ultimately leads to war and destruction. Or perhaps...