Behind the Rise of Switzerland as a Major Financial Center

Valued for strategic and historic neutrality that traces back to the Treaty of Westphalia of 1649, Switzerland is a central hub of the emerging international financial system. The Treaty of Westphalia confirmed that each nation is sovereign and inviolable, that no external force may meddle in its internal affairs. This is a fundamental principle in international law. Respect for the law, however, did not jive with the syndicate’s dystopian vision of a borderless world governed by itself.

Global financial interests working through Switzerland have systematically eroding the sovereignty of nations, arguably in violation of international law and under color of law. In the case of the European Union, or example, the World Wars served as a pretext to curtail nationalism. The fallacious argument given is that nationalism (and therefore sovereignty) must be contained through regional institutions (run by unelected bureaucrats), lest they (rather than the bankers behind them) be prone to wage war to plunder the resources and wealth of another. The Treaty of Westphalia determined that all nations, whether large or small, weak or powerful, were given equal consideration. No powerful nation had the right to violate the sovereignty of a weaker one, for example.