This volume retraces Carl Lutz’s diplomatic wartime rescue efforts in Budapest, Hungary, through the lens of Jewish eyewitness testimonies. Together with his wife, Gertrud Lutz-Fankhauser, the director of the Palestine Office in Budapest, Moshe Krausz, fellow Swiss citizens Harald Feller, Ernst Vonrufs, Peter Zürcher, and the underground Zionist Youth Movement, Carl Lutz led an extensive rescue operation between March 1944 and February 1945. It is estimated that Lutz and his team of rescuers issued more than 50,000 lifesaving letters of protection (Schutzbriefe) and placed persecuted Jews in 76 safe houses—annexes of the Swiss Legation. Based on interviews with Holocaust survivors in Canada, Hungary, Israel, Switzerland, the UK, and the United States, this volume shines a light on the extraordinary scope and scale of Carl Lutz’s humanitarian response.

A timely guide to the complex financial markets and banking secrecy of Switzerland Since 1934, when Switzerland's federal bank secrecy law was passed, the line between myth and reality with regard to Swiss banking has been blurred. But over the past decade, there have been dramatic changes in the pressures brought to bear on all facets of the Swiss financial markets and banking sector. Recent developments and agreements have potentially weakened Swiss banking secrecy, and with that said, it is time for a book that lays out the history of Swiss bank secrecy and puts these twenty-first century changes in perspective. Swiss Finance is a thorough overview of the Swiss financial markets and the banking secrecy this country has become known for. It covers key topics to practitioners both abroad and in the United States involved in Swiss banking and the Swiss financial markets. Discusses what the Euro-debt crisis may mean for the role of Switzerland as a financial powerhouse Reveals how new secrecy agreements with the United States and Germany will impact private wealth management Addresses Asian competition for wealth management and tax havens Switzerland is one of the largest financial markets in the world and a global power in private wealth administration. Whether you're a private wealth advisor, Swiss or U.S. banker, or other finance practitioner involved in the Swiss market, this guide is essential reading if you intend on achieving future success in this arena.

Arbitration in Switzerland

The book aims at understanding the current distribution and use of powers over the environment among various layers of government and their consequences on environmental protection, comparing federal, regional and unitary State models and drawing theoretical and practical consequences.

Up to a generation ago, the Swiss citizen lived with a feeling of security in foreign relations which we can hardly credit today. Neutrality has come to be taken so much for granted as the fundamental principle of the Federal constitution, and had been so generally recognized in Europe, that it seemed unthreatened and even inviolable. It blended with the republican and democratic ideal to form a national myth of almost religious sanctity. As the axiom of Swiss foreign policy, it had certainly suffered attack both in theory and in fact, but since such crises had always been successfully overcome, Switzerland’s faith in the inviolability of her neutrality had merely been confirmed. It was as if the country were girdled with high, protecting ramparts, behind which its people could go about their lawful occasions unmolested. It was in this period of calm in Switzerland’s foreign relations that international law assiduously sought a formula for the theory of neutrality.

At first sight, a free trade agreement (FTA) between Switzerland and the United States seems implausible, but this important new study concludes that an FTA between the two countries would be highly worthwhile to both. As leading advocates of market capitalism, Switzerland and the United States are well situated to conclude an FTA that breaks new ground in dismantling barriers. The study finds that the annual GDP gains to each partner from expanded trade could be on the order of $1.1 billion.

In the last few years, social media has become the primary way of communicating, not only among friends and colleagues but also between employers and employees and between companies and consumers. For employers, the phenomenon offers great opportunities, but also concomitant dangers due primarily to use of social media by employees and employees' representatives. Written in the context of employment laws as well as privacy laws, this book surveys the state of the law in over thirty key jurisdictions, including most of the developed countries of Europe, Asia, and North America and major developing countries worldwide. The publication arose from a seminar prepared by the editors and others at which it was clearly identified that internationally operating employers need a comprehensive and user-friendly multinational summary on employment and labour law questions arising in connection with the use of social media. The book is divided into country chapters, each written by a known local specialist. In order to easily 'navigate' through the issues for each country, the chapters follow a uniform structure, covering the applicable statutory regimes, case law, useful checklists, and recommendations. Among the issues and topics dealt with are the following: - employees' entitlement to use social media at the workplace; - whether employers can require the use of social media by employees; - right of employers to monitor employees' use of social media outside the workplace; - employers' potential liability for employees' misuse of social media; - right of employee representatives to use employers' equipment for social media purposes; - employers' remedies against misuse of social media by employees and employee representatives; - development and drafting of a social media policy; and - role of social media in employer–employee disputes. No other publication exists providing interested parties with a practical and strategic guide to legal issues affecting the use of social media in the workplace. With its easy-to-use country-by-country format and its expert recommendations, this unique resource will prove itself as an incomparable handbook for lawyers, human resources professionals, and in-house counsel advising or working for internationally operating businesses. It will also be of inestimable value for academics and policymakers concerned with the legal ramifications of social media use in the workplace.

This book is written for the serious person of means who wants safety and performance from invested wealth. No matter where you live or what economic and political hazards your country of residence presents to investment you owe it to yourself to consider Switzerland as the place to put your hard-earned money, especially in the Swiss insurance annuity. In my experience a comparison of the Swiss annuity with more traditional forms of asset protection shows that an annuity can serve the same function as trusts or similar legal devices but produces a far greater return for your money with complete safety and less complexity. Here we are concerned with personal wealth, its creation, expansion and preservation. In that context it is not understatement to describe the Swiss financial system's unequaled world record as unique in combining investor safety with assured earnings. Thoughtful people who value financial freedom and asset protection know this well. The question is why any serious foreign investor fails to avail himself of the many benefits of the Swiss system. The answer is; the serious investor never fails! Every person should plan for the important aspects of their financial life. One major area is estate planning which hopefully will insure that at the time of death property passes without incident according to the deceased's wishes. The second area is lifetime financial planning which seeks to build and manage an investable estate to provide assets and income. The third area, the one I will address, is asset protection, an indispensable element without which the other two can be rendered meaningless. This is one of the first books to discuss the portfolio bond, an insurance product offered by companies in Switzerland, which offers significant asset protection, tax and privacy advantages for American investors.