Pepperdine Law Review Volume 27 Issue 3 Article 4 4-15-2000 Litigating The Holocaust: A Consistent Theory in Tort For The Private Enforcement of Human Rights Violations Derek Brown Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/plr Part of the Human Rights Law Commons, Military, War, and Peace Commons, and the Torts Commons Recommended Citation Derek Brown Litigating The Holocaust: A Consistent Theory in Tort For The Private Enforcement of Human Rights Violations , 27 Pepp. L. Rev. Iss. 3 (2000) Available at: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/plr/vol27/iss3/4 This Comment is brought to you for free and open access by the Caruso School of Law at Pepperdine Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Pepperdine Law Review by an authorized editor of Pepperdine Digital Commons. For more information, please contact
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[email protected]. Litigating The Holocaust: A Consistent Theory in Tort For The Private Enforcement of Human Rights Violations I. INTRODUCTION Survivors of the Holocaust have repeatedly attempted, with little apparent success, to recover the assets their families deposited in Swiss banks prior to World War II. Considering the claimants' subsequent-yet understandable lack of documentation,- until now these survivors have had to rely solely on the banks' promises to expedite the return of these "dormant accounts" to their rightful owners.' Reliance on such promises, however, quickly evaporated with the public disclosure of one man's experience: Christoph Meili.4 A security guard for the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS), Meili became an international figure early in 1997.