The morality of counter-boycotts – Torkel Brekke
1.
The literature about the morality and legality of boycotts is extensive. In the past, campaigns for academic boycotts against the apartheid regime of South Africa generated a scholarly debate about principles and effects of such boycotts. After the 7 October massacre and the Gaza war, debates about academic boycotts of Israel have intensified. The state of Florida has created a list of entities that boycott Israel and has decided to divest from organizations on the list. In other words, the state of Florida has decided to launch what we may call counter-boycotts against a number of entities around the world, including many universities that have decided to boycott Israel. It has yet to be determined what effects, if any, this will have on the organizations that Florida is targeting. We also do not know yet whether the Florida initiative will spread to other states or to the federal level of US politics, or whether the governments of other countries might think of similar schemes.
The question in this article is this: Are counter-boycotts against universities and scholarly societies engaged in academic boycotts justified? If the answer is yes, under what circumstances are they justified?
2.
Academic boycotts are initiatives by universities and scholarly societies targeting, primarily, the academic life of a country or, secondarily, institutions that have connections with the targeted state. The most famous and influential boycott movement today is undoubtedly the BDS (Boycott, Sanction, Divestment) movement targeting Israel. In the context of the global debates and protests about the Gaza war starting October 2023 as a response to the 7 October massacre, a large number of universities, student bodies and scholarly societies have initiated academic boycotts of Israel.
Academic boycotts are morally wrong for several reasons. Firstly, they breach the fundamental and universal value of non-discrimination that is essential to the global community of scholars and students. Secondly, they target people who are not morally responsible in order to place political pressure on a government. Sometimes, actions can be justified even when they have a double effect. In other words, actions can sometimes be morally justified even if they end up doing harm that is unforeseen and unintended. However, the harmful effects of academic boycotts are not covered by a double effect argument in this sense. This is because in academic boycotts the harm against the innocent is neither an unintended nor unforeseen consequence of the boycott. In most cases, it is the harm done to the innocent that is the point of the boycott. This harm is thought to create the political leverage.
Thirdly, the universities and scholarly societies doing the boycotting do not have the legitimate authority to launch boycotts. This is a point that, as far as I know, has not been discussed in the literature about boycotts. There is a symmetry between the moral standing of acts of boycott and acts of war. In the literature about just war, the question of authority is key for judging whether a war is just or unjust. Just war thinkers insist that only the supreme political authority had the legitimate authority to start wars. Today that means mostly state governments. Similarly, without some higher authority taking charge, boycotts and counter-boycotts might create chaos, like the constant warfare in medieval Europe that the just war tradition set out to fix.
3.
It seems that the academic boycott of Israel is a particular case of academic boycotts. In addition to the arguments set out above I must stress that boycotts of Israel have a distinct quality that is not found in other boycotts. They have antisemitic effects in two ways. Firstly, Israelis who are Jews are more likely to suffer the effects of boycotts than Arab-Muslim Israelis. Secondly, Jews who are not Israelis also suffer the effects of boycotts ostensibly targeting Israel. This has been widely documented anecdotally. However, it must be said that this is an area where empirical research is badly needed to establish the extent of antisemitic effects of anti-Israel boycotts. Research on contemporary antisemitism should prioritize research exploring these effects.
4.
Given that academic boycotts are morally wrong in the ways set out in section 2 and 3. above, we need to ask the question of what we should do to counter such boycotts. The most obvious answer is that one should respond through rational arguments in appropriate fora. Members of boards of universities and scholarly societies have a moral responsibility to make moral arguments against boycotts and should vote down initiatives from scholars and students who campaign for the use of such boycotts.
Large funding bodies like the European Research Council (ERC) and national research councils are all committed to the fundamental value of non-discrimination. These funding bodies break their own moral codes if they fund research at institutions that are in violation of these values through boycotting. Such funding bodies cannot avoid the moral and legal obligations they have. This seems to imply that they must consider whether they can interact with universities and scholarly societies engaged in boycotting.
In May 2025, the Norwegian Member of Parliament Mrs Sylvi Listhaug submitted a question in the Norwegian Parliament to the then minister of research Mr Oddmund Hoel. The question was about the values of the ERC and how this European funding body could fund research at institutions in Norway that break the ERC’s own explicit values and rules about non-discrimination. In a case where a funding body like the ERC has information that a research group funded by them break values and rules about non-discrimination, for instance by expelling Israelis scholars from an ERC-funded project, it would seem that the funding body must take action so that its funding is not used to support a research group and an institution that engages in discrimination on national and ethnic grounds. The minister did not give an appropriate response.
Governments of the state where boycotting universities and scholarly societies are located have a duty to pressure the relevant universities and scholarly societies into discontinuing their boycott campaigns. The counter-argument would be that this is a breach of academic freedom. However, if we take the arguments from section 2 and 3 seriously, academic freedom cannot imply the freedom to boycott. In other words, the academic freedom of universities and scholarly societies does not cover the freedom to discriminate. Moreover, academic freedom does not entail the freedom to take on the role of states and carrying out acts that are essentially foreign policy: universities and scholarly societies do not have legitimate authority as foreign policy agents. To claim these rights in the name of academic freedom is an abuse of the concept of academic freedom.
5.
We have seen that the mechanisms for stopping boycott initiatives set out in section 4 are increasingly ineffective with the consequence that more and more universities and scholarly societies engage in boycotts across borders, particularly against Israel or against organizations associated with the country. How can we counter academic boycotts when these measures are failing? We reach the question that this article set out to answer: Are counter-boycotts against universities and scholarly societies engaged in academic boycotts justified? If the answer is yes, under what circumstances are they justified?
To answer this we need to start by asking what counter-boycotts are. Before we start delimiting counter-boycotts we should briefly dismiss one type of objection. Norway is a prominent case for a discussion about the moral justification of counter-boycotts because a number of its universities have been listed by Florida. In the Norwegian debate, those who support academic boycotts against Israel have attacked counter-boycotts as a Trumpist attack on academic freedom while casting themselves as victims. This is a hollow rhetorical tactic by the anti-Israeli movement to avoid dealing with the substance of the moral case for and against boycotts and counter-boycotts. Moral arguments must be judged on their own merit and cannot be dismissed simply because the US government has endorsed similar viewpoints.
6.
Counter-boycotts are different from academic boycotts in two senses. Firstly, they are reactive in that they are reactions against boycotts. In this sense they are also defensive in that they are designed not to initiate some harmful action but to counter a harmful action already in motion. Some would argue that counter-boycotts cannot be used if we agree that academic boycotts are morally wrong. Using boycotts to counter-boycotts is inconsistent, according to this argument. But this argument is clearly flawed. Given the reactive nature of counter-boycotts it is not true that boycotts and counter-boycotts belong to the same category of action, morally speaking.
Secondly, counter-boycotts are limited in two ways. A) They are limited in their political aims to the lifting of the original boycott. If the original boycott was unjustified is will be justified to have as a goal to have it lifted. B) They are limited in time in the sense that they can only be initiated after an original boycott has started and should be lifted when the original boycott is lifted and the political aim of the counter-boycott has been achieved.
The parallel to warlike acts of aggression is instructive. In the international system there is a presumption against aggression between states, but when a state attacks another state we all agree that defensive use of force is justified. The attack and the defense are not moral equivalents. Counter-boycotts are limited actions countering an initial act of aggression in the same sense. Counter-boycotts are defensive. The argument that counter-boycotts are essentially the same as boycotts is flawed because aggression and defense are not morally equivalent. In short, counter-boycotts are boycotts that have four characteristics. They are:
- reactive in the sense that they aim to right a wrong committed
- directed at an institution that have initiated an unjustified boycott
- focused in its political aims
- limited and in its timing
7.
It might be argued that Israel is in effect engaged in a boycott of Palestinian academic institutions. This might give academic boycotts of Israel a status as defensive actions. In other words, it might be argued that boycotts against Israel are in a sense counter-boycotts. In support of this argument one could say that Palestinian scholars and students in Gaza and the West Bank experience restrictions on their work and study that amount to a boycott. It is probably true that Israel has for a long time placed restrictions on Palestinian academic life that are not proportional to the security threat that the Israeli state is facing. In other words, it seems reasonable to say that Israel for a long time has unfairly undermined the academic life of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Following this reasoning, one could also discuss the intended or unintended destruction of the buildings of universities and schools in the context of the wars in Gaza. However, the goals set out by the boycott movement against Israel is proof that it is in no way engaged in a counter-boycott. Since the start of this movement in the early 2000s, the goals of the movement have been both very broad, diffuse and unrealistic. For example, among these goals is the return of six million Palestinians with refugee status to the land of their ancestors inside Israel. This is a goal that everybody knows with certainty is never going to be attained without the wholesale destruction of the state and nation of Israel. In other words, the lack of precise, actionable and realistic goals of the boycott movement against Israel shows that this movement is not engaged in anything like a defensive counter-boycott. On the contrary, one might argue that the goals of the boycott movements show that it is an element in a broader war in the state and society of Israel.
8.
Counter-boycotts seem to be justified for the same reasons that defensive war is justified. But at the same time it is clear that counter-boycotts have the potential to harm people who should not be harmed. For instance, a counter-boycott may create conditions that make it impossible for researchers to participate in research even though they opposed the original academic boycotts that the counter-boycott is directed against. I already explained that counter-boycotts must be reactive, directed, focused and limited to count as counter-boycotts. If counter-boycotts can be justified, under what circumstances are they justified?
First of all, it is crucial to ask what authorities can initiate a counter-boycott. Above, I argued that universities and scholarly societies do not have legitimate authority to organize academic boycotts. The same is the case for counter-boycotts. This means that universities and scholarly societies are not justified in organizing counter-boycotts against other universities and scholarly societies to force them to discontinue an academic boycott. This should be left to authorities that are democratically elected to take political action in an international context, like state governments. Tax payers and donors never asked universities and scholarly societies to represent them in international politics.
Secondly, counter-boycotts need to be necessary to be justified. This means that other immediate measures to stop academic boycotts must have been tried without success. In other words, such counter-boycotts are a last resort. Thirdly, counter-boycotts need to state very clearly their political demands and the criteria for when a counter-boycott will be lifted.
9.
To conclude, counter-boycotts have become an issue of debate as academic boycotts against Israel proliferate and because the state of Florida has initiated what we may call counter-boycotts against the boycotters of Israel. While academic boycotts fail tests of moral justifications for reasons set out above, counter-boycotts are different because they are reactive, directed, focused and limited. Such counter-boycotts are justified, but only under certain conditions.
Torkel Brekke
Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society
