PHA-Exchange> US puts end to block on papers from sanctioned states

[claudio at hcmc.netnam.vn]

 from Vern Weitzel <vern.weitzel at undp.org> -----

US puts end to block on papers from sanctioned states
[WASHINGTON] Months of confusion ended last week when the US Department of the 
Treasury issued 
licences that permit US publishers to accept and print scholarly papers with 
authors from Cuba, Iran 
and Sudan. Some publishers had stopped doing so over concerns that they could 
fall foul of US trade 
sanctions on these countries, which are deemed to pose an "unusual and 
extraordinary threat" to US 
national security.

The department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) initially ruled that 
publishing papers from 
these countries required a special licence (see Nature 427, 663; 2004). 
Publishers who failed to 
obtain one would be violating the trade embargo and be liable to heavy fines, 
it said.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers was exempted from the 
requirement in April. 
But four groups representing academic publishers decided to sue the treasury on 
the grounds that the 
requirement is unconstitutional.

Allan Adler, vice-president for legal and governmental affairs at the 
Association of American 
Publishers, one of the groups filing the suit, says that the department's 
decision is a positive 
one. He and the other publishing groups will now review whether to proceed with 
their lawsuit.



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