IEEE OFAC Summit of Scholarly Publishers

Washington, D.C., 11 Feb – In a meeting initiated by the IEEE, scholarly publishing leaders discussed critical issues about restrictions on articles submitted by authors in embargoed countries with a representative from the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. The meeting was held on Monday, 9 February in Washington D.C.  David Mills, OFAC chief of licensing, addressed the more than 60 individuals representing 30 not-for profit and commercial scholarly publishers who wanted more information about OFAC’s perspective on its restrictions on publishing.  During his remarks about OFAC’s position and answers to questions, Mills encouraged the groups represented to work together to help OFAC better understand the academic peer review process. He noted that his office requires constant education to understand the different areas they are asked to rule on. “Dialog with you is essential,” he said to the publishing leaders.

As a result of this event, IEEE will work with industry colleagues to ensure OFAC obtains the education it needs to understand the difficult issues facing scholarly publishers resulting from restrictions on editing and peer review.  In addition, IEEE also will continue ongoing discussions about legislative and legal options with the other scholarly publishing groups.

In his opening remarks to the summit, President Winston said that historically, U.S. laws have rarely hindered IEEE’s ability to serve its worldwide membership and authoring community. “Today, the OFAC restrictions raise many important issues about academic freedom -- not only for the IEEE, but for all scientific, technical and medical publishers,” Winston said. He also confirmed, “IEEE is committed to investigating any and all avenues that will lead to a resolution of the difficult situation OFAC creates for scholarly publishers.”

Also speaking about IEEE’s position on and experience with the regulations were IEEE Vice President for Publication Services and Products Michael Lightner, IEEE Staff Director of Publication Services and Products Anthony Durniak and Managing Director of IEEE Regional Activities Cecelia Jankowski, who addressed the impact of OFAC restrictions on membership.  Nelson Dong, a partner with Dorsey and Whitney LLP, legal counsel for IEEE, also presented a review of recent OFAC rulings relevant to meeting attendees.  

IEEE has been fighting against the impact of the OFAC embargo restrictions since mid 2001 when a bank flagged an attempted transfer of funds for a meeting room reservation at a conference in Iran. After an extensive investigation, in early 2002 IEEE began offering only limited memberships to about 1,800 members in such embargoed countries as Cuba, Iran, Libya and Sudan. The memberships provide access to IEEE print publications only. Since then the number of those accepting limited membership has dropped to around 200.

In September 2003, OFAC ruled that the IEEE peer review process for authors residing in Iran was exempt from its regulations as IEEE had argued. But OFAC said IEEE’s editing of papers submitted by such authors required a license. Although it disagreed, to expedite a resolution of this issue, IEEE applied for the license last October. OFAC has not yet issued its ruling. 

For more information on IEEE and the OFAC restrictions, visit the IEEE and OFAC Information page.

From left to right, David Mills, OFAC chief of licensing, discusses U.S. government restrictions on publishing with Michael Lightner, IEEE Vice President of Publication Services and Products, and Arthur Winston, IEEE President, at a meeting of scholarly publishers hosted by IEEE.

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