Cultural imperialism
Feb. 23rd, 2004 07:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
radegundI'm an editor, and it upsets me when I read that US law now prohibits publishers from editing papers by scholars from five "embargoed nations".
In a move that pits national security concerns against academic freedom and the international flow of information, the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control recently declared that American publishers cannot edit works authored in nations under trade embargoes. Although publishing the articles is legal, editing is a "service" and it is illegal to perform services for embargoed nations, the agency has ruled.
The nations affected are Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Libya and Cuba. So their scholars can be published in American journals, but only in unedited form (and, as the article later explains, unrefereed also - which completely defeats the purpose from the point of view of the author).
This is pretty sinister, right? It's not just me?
[Countdown of joy: just 35 days until the smoking ban comes into force.]
In a move that pits national security concerns against academic freedom and the international flow of information, the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control recently declared that American publishers cannot edit works authored in nations under trade embargoes. Although publishing the articles is legal, editing is a "service" and it is illegal to perform services for embargoed nations, the agency has ruled.
The nations affected are Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Libya and Cuba. So their scholars can be published in American journals, but only in unedited form (and, as the article later explains, unrefereed also - which completely defeats the purpose from the point of view of the author).
This is pretty sinister, right? It's not just me?
[Countdown of joy: just 35 days until the smoking ban comes into force.]
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-23 02:58 pm (UTC)