In a shift that appears to remove restrictions against publishing authors from outlaw nations, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control has issued a new rule that allows U.S. publishers, in most instances, to freely publish authors from countries like the Sudan and Iran.
The new rule also appears to satisfy legal challenges to the previous OFAC publishing ban filed earlier this fall by the Association of American University Presses and three co-plaintiffs. The OFAC ban was also challenged in a separate suit filed by the Wendy Strothman Agency on behalf of Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi.
AAUP lawyer Edward J. Davis, of the firm Davis Wright and Tremain, told PW that the new rule is a "constructive response to litigation. These changes clear the way to publish the books and articles that have been held up by OFAC's restrictions." But Davis also said that while the rule "clears away many obstacles," some provisions of the new rule still need to be studied.
The AAUP suit, which includes the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of AAP, PEN American Center and Arcade Publishing, claims it is a violation of the First Amendment for OFAC to attempt to regulate American publishers in any way. Davis said that while "as a practical matter all the restrictions have been lifted," he emphasized that the suit challenges the legality of OFAC issuing any rules for American publishers. "We're examining those issues right now," Davis said.
Philip Allen Lacovara, attorney for the Strothman Agency, had much the same reaction. He said he was "pleased by the decision to open the channels between the U.S. and embargoed nations." But he also said the new rule needed more study before declaring the legal challenge finished: "We must discuss the new rule with the Treasury Department, to make sure the revised regulations are permanent and not a short-term effort." Strothman hopes to represent Ebadi as she looks for a U.S. publisher.
In a statement released through the Treasury Department Web site (www.treasury.gov), Stuart Levey, the department's undersecretary for the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said that disputed OFAC guidelines were "interpreted by some as discouraging the publication of dissident speech from within these oppressive regimes. That's the opposite of what we want."
According to OFAC, the new rule enables U.S. persons to "freely engage in most ordinary publishing activities" with authors from restricted nations, while retaining restrictions on interactions with the governments and government officials of outlaw nations.
The dispute began in 2003, when OFAC warned a number of technical and scholarly publishers that under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, they were required to apply for a government license in order to edit and publish the works of authors from countries such as Iran and Cuba that fall under provisions of the U.S. trade embargo.
