Federal Constitution of the Swiss Confederation

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall le­gis­late on re­search on hu­man be­ings where this is re­quired in or­der to pro­tect their dig­nity and pri­vacy. In do­ing so, it shall pre­serve the free­dom to con­duct re­search and shall take ac­count of the im­port­ance of re­search to health and so­ci­ety.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall ad­here to the fol­low­ing prin­ciples in re­la­tion to bio­lo­gic­al and med­ic­al re­search in­volving hu­man be­ings:

a.

It is a re­quire­ment for any re­search pro­ject that the par­ti­cipants or their leg­al rep­res­ent­at­ives have giv­en their in­formed con­sent. The law may provide for ex­cep­tions. A re­fus­al is bind­ing in every case.

b.

The risks and stress for the par­ti­cipants must not be dis­pro­por­tion­ate to the be­ne­fits of the re­search pro­ject.

c.

A re­search pro­ject in­volving per­sons lack­ing the ca­pa­city to con­sent may be con­duc­ted only if find­ings of equal value can­not be ob­tained from re­search in­volving per­sons who have the ca­pa­city to con­sent. If the re­search pro­ject is not ex­pec­ted to bring any im­me­di­ate be­ne­fit to the per­sons lack­ing the ca­pa­city to con­sent, the risks and stress must be min­im­al.

d.

An in­de­pend­ent as­sess­ment of the re­search pro­ject must have de­term­ined that the safety of the par­ti­cipants is guar­an­teed.