Samsung Electronics

Global Human Rights Principles

February 2023
 Global Human Rights Principles

Human rights are the fundamental rights and freedoms that are inherent to all human
beings. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (hereinafter “Samsung”, “Company”, “we”) is
committed to integrate the basic yet fundamental principle that human rights belong to all
people into its values and business activities across the globe.

Our Commitment
Samsung’s Global Human Rights Principles (the “Policy”) formalizes our commitment to respect all human
rights and labour standards which are reflected in international principles and standards including the
International Bill of Human Rights (composed of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural
Rights), the International Labour Organization's (ILO) Declaration on Fundamental Rights and Principles at
Work, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), the OECD Guidelines for
Multinational Enterprises as well as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and
Punish Trafficking in Persons and, at a minimum, the laws of the countries in which we operate. Where
Samsung faces conflicts between internationally recognized human rights and national laws, including in
cases where national law does explicitly prohibit adherence to core labour standards, the company will follow
processes that seek ways to honour the highest standard.

As a signatory of the UN Global Compact (UNGC), the world's largest corporate sustainability initiative, and a
member of the Responsible Business Alliance(RBA), an industry coalition dedicated to corporate social
responsibility in global supply chains, we apply the 10 principles set forth in the UNGC within and across our
business, strategies, company culture, and management practices and commit to the RBA Code of Conduct.

We operate across vast geographies, including in locations where social, economic and political factors may
put human rights and decent working conditions at risk. We believe that respect for human rights is the best
foundation to run our operations and that it adds value to our company. We also recognize the important
responsibility we have as a company in this regard and are therefore committed to respect human rights
across all our business activities, including the products and services we provide, to live up to our commitment
to do no harm and to promote human rights where we can have a positive impact within our sphere of our
influence. We are committed to making our best effort to not be complicit in or cause any human rights
violations and to respect the human rights of every individual or group connected to our business--with
particular care for vulnerable and marginalized groups who may be impacted by our activities including
migrant and young workers, disabled people, women as well as disadvantaged groups, and under
consideration of high risk contexts. This accounts for our own business activities, and we hold our suppliers
and partners to this same high standard. We commit to continually update and improve our human rights
approach in line with the spirit of the UNGPs.

This policy applies worldwide to Samsung and to all its entities including our own factories and other
subsidiaries, all its permanent employees and contingent workers, our products and services as well as our
business relationships including our supply chain, third-party contractors and subcontractors, partners,
resellers and other relevant stakeholders including our customers, product end-users and communities.
Samsung also expects its suppliers and other business partners to uphold these principles, including to
prevent, mitigate and address adverse human rights impacts, and strongly encourages them to adopt the
same or similar standards and policies within their own businesses.

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 Salient Human Rights Risks
Samsung strives to prioritize the management of the human rights impacts of our business activities based on
our business relationships, the operational context, our leverage and severity. We recognize that priorities
may change over time and therefore regularly review our focus areas. Our work is organized around our
salient human rights risks, which we have identified through our continuous engagement with internal and
external stakeholders, internal assessments, third party audits, grievance channels and human rights risk
and impact assessments:

• Working hours and the right to an adequate standard of living

Samsung recognizes the right to rest and leisure and commits to follow applicable local laws and regulations with
regard to working hours and overtime. Samsung commits to the ILO Convention C001 for a regular workweek, C014
as well as C106 on working hours and rest. All overtime must be voluntary and paid at a premium rate as per local
law. Workers shall be provided sufficient rest including breaks, rest between shifts, holiday, and allowed at least one
day off every seven days. Samsung acknowledges the link between working hours and an adequate standard of
living and is therefore committed to provide remuneration for a regular work week which satisfies workers basic
needs and those of the members of their family who are directly dependent on them. Employee compensation is paid,
at a minimum, in compliance with applicable wage laws, including those related to minimum wages, overtime hours,
and legally mandated benefits. There shall be no unlawful deductions taken from workers’ wages; where legitimate
wage deductions are made workers shall be properly informed. Samsung expects its suppliers to abide by the same
standards.

• Prevention of forced and child labour

Samsung recognizes the risk of both forced and child labour especially in the lower tiers of its supply chain. We
prohibit any form of child labour and forced labour, and expect our suppliers to share our commitment to conduct
thorough due diligence to address risks, including age verification checks. Identified cases are handled with extra
care and according to internal protocols with the aim to provide remediation and reinstate the rights of affected
individuals. Samsung commits to the Employer Pays Principle and actively monitors and works with its supply chain
partners to prevent the payment of recruitment fees by workers and the occurrence of other ILO forced labour
indicators. Where infringements do occur, immediate action is taken, where applicable in collaboration with
suppliers, to rectify issues including the repayment of recruitment fees. Special protection is provided for young
workers which should not perform hazardous work, overtime, or night shift work. Samsung works with various
stakeholders, has partnerships and programs to address root causes and existing risks, including programs on
helping young people to find meaningful employment to address the cycle of poverty as one of the root-causes of
child labour.

• Freedom of association and collective bargaining

Samsung recognizes the right of its own and business partners’ employees to form and join trade unions of their own
choosing, to bargain collectively, and to engage in peaceful assembly, as well as the right to refrain from such
activities. Samsung commits to refrain from any interference which would restrict this right or impede the lawful
exercise thereof, which includes that the discrimination of workers for forming or participating in a union is strictly
prohibited. Samsung recognizes that the right to freedom of expression and of association are essential to sustained
progress and encourages its employees to express their views, concerns, and suggestions openly without reprisal.

• Occupational health and safety

Samsung is committed to providing a safe and healthy workplace environment for its employees, contractors and
other business partners in compliance with health laws and regulations, as well as internal requirements. We are
committed to eliminating the risk of any harm to people from all our activities, and to keep people healthy. This
includes efforts to reduce risks to people’s health due to internal and external factors such as work accidents, injury,
health impacts (including mental health) and pandemics as well as emergency response systems in the event of
external safety concerns including natural disasters. Robust internal management systems and emergency
response systems are in place to protect our people. PPEs are provided to our employees at no cost and OHS training
is provided on a regular basis to secure a safe working environment. Employees have the right to and freedom from
retaliation in case they leave their workplace because they feel they are in danger.

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• Non-discrimination and diversity
Samsung is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace which is free from any type of discrimination in its own
operations and places importance on the same values for the partners we do business with. We are committed to
promote equal opportunities for all applicants and employees throughout the entire lifecycle of an employment
relationship, including gender equality and efforts to empower female workers. Any type of discrimination on the
basis of age, disability, ethnicity, sex, gender, race, color, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, union membership
or any other status is strictly prohibited and won’t be tolerated.

• Anti-harassment
Samsung employees are expected to treat its co-workers and all its business partners with dignity and respect. All
forms of harassment—including sexual harassment, violence, disrespectful and inappropriate behavior, retaliation
or corporal punishment—are strictly prohibited, including harassment on the basis of discrimination against people
with protected characteristics such as age, disability, ethnicity, sex, gender, race, color, religion, nationality, sexual
orientation, union membership or any other status.

• Product responsibility including AI Ethics

Innovative technologies are created to positively transform our society but can result in negative side effects due to
their design and potential misuse contrary to their originally intent. Samsung seeks to understand potential human
rights risks prior and during product development by carrying out due diligence in responsible product design,
primarily through our AI Ethics Council, AI Principles of fairness, transparency and accountability and supporting
training and partnerships related to artificial intelligence to fulfil our social and ethical responsibilities. Members of
the public including communities and end-consumers, particularly those being at higher risk such as children and
disabled persons, are also entitled to not experience harm through our business activities and products. Samsung
commits to uphold their rights accordingly and does not tolerate any misuse of our products.

• Digital responsibility including Privacy and Freedom of Expression

Samsung is committed to the right to privacy and freedom of expression and strives to protect against unauthorized
access, storage, use, destruction, modification, or disclosure of personal information and data for its own employees,
business partners as well as its end consumers. All of Samsung’s products and services are delivered in compliance
with its Privacy Protection Principles including transparency, security and choice and its country-specific Global
Privacy Policy, which reflects the respective country’s laws and regulations, to safeguard the privacy of our
consumers globally. Our approach is to provide products and services enabling free expression, access to
information and exchange of ideas that won’t enable customers, including governments, to bypass or compromise
security features to be used to surveil or intercept communications or otherwise limit the right to free expression.

• Environmental Responsibility
Samsung acknowledges that climate change is a serious environmental, economic and social challenge and
recognizes the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment as a universal human right. Samsung’s
environmental strategy is aiming to address environmental risks emerging out of its product operation and use by
reducing emissions, applying new sustainability practices and the development of innovative technologies and
products to contribute to a just transition and to address risks to communities and people such as waste, emissions
and water use and pollution.

• Supplier Responsibility including Responsible Mineral Sourcing

While the majority of our products are being produced in-house, we are aware that much of the risk, especially of
more severe violations, are prevalent in the lower tiers of our supply chain. In our efforts to manage those risks and
engage with our suppliers, we apply an integrated work environment management process to check and monitor the
implementation of our Supplier Code of Conduct. We prioritize key suppliers in conflict-affected and high-risk areas,
and particular focus is given to the most salient risks including in the areas of forced and child labour, risks to
migrant workers, health and safety standards, environment, hours of work and wages as well as responsible mineral
management. Samsung has established a conflict-free minerals management system based on the OECD Due
Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas and
works with dedicated initiatives including the RBA Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI) to address challenges on
the ground.

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 Implementation of our Human Rights Commitments
Based on the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), Samsung has
formally established the following Labour and Human Rights Framework, providing an integrated working
model to manage our human rights due diligence process in a holistic manner within and beyond the
organization, embedding key steps to identify, prevent and mitigate human rights risk factors and
infringements across our business operations and relationships:

• Human rights policy

All of Samsung’s human rights-related policies (overview referenced below) are an expression of our
public and top management commitment to meet our responsibility to respect and support
internationally recognized human rights standards in which we stipulate our expectations of personnel,
business partners and other relevant parties and how we plan to implement these commitments. Policies
are based on international standards and its development and amendments are informed by a holistic
assessment of risks, internal needs and industry developments and follows a process of internal
awareness raising activities to support its implementation and external communication to stakeholders
to increase transparency and accountability.

• Human rights training

Through regular human rights training targeted to the specific functions and levels across the
organization, we disseminate to all employees the importance of human rights, educate employees on
their rights, on the company's efforts to respect the rights of employees, and the actions to be taken to
prevent infringements and manage human rights violations. By providing training to our own employees
and selected supply chain partners we aim to promote awareness and build a culture where human rights
become an integral part of our business and company culture as well as that of our business partners.

• Human rights due diligence

Based on the principle of continuous improvement, Samsung has conducted regular and on-going human
rights due diligence since 2013, taking into account constantly changing internal and external business
environments, and is committed to continuing to do so in the future. Our approach includes:

• Assessing the potential and actual adverse risk of our business operations to individuals and groups being
impacted by our operations through a variety of measures including engagement with internal and external
stakeholders, assessments and targeted investigations leaning on methodologies of the Responsible Business
Alliance (RBA) by our internal human rights teams, RBA third-party audits and external party-lead human
rights risk and impact assessments in high-impact markets or on salient issues where our leverage is high;

• Prioritizing risks and implementing steps to close gaps and findings accordingly across the organization via
short-, medium- and long-term actions plans, dedicated internal programs and other measures, including
measures to prevent reoccurrence;

• Identifying if measures taken are effective and lead to prevention of harm and a positive outcome by
monitoring the implementation of our policies via impact assessments and third-party audits and taking
corrective measures, where necessary;

• Extend our human rights due diligence practices to our business partners, including our service providers and
suppliers from whom we strive to source responsibly from. Towards this end, we operate a management
process and system build on our Supplier Code of Conduct principles which introduces an assessment of
suppliers’ human rights performance prior to doing business, an pathway to close gaps, capacity building
support to enhance management system capabilities, continuous internal and third-party verification of their
performance, and incentives for good human rights performance; and,

• Regularly review, update and extend our management system, processes and scope according to findings and
in line with external developments and as best practice evolves.

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• Access to remedy
Samsung is committed to perform thorough due diligence to prevent direct or indirect complicity in human rights
violations in its business operations. Where infringements have occurred and individuals or groups have
experienced actual adverse impacts caused or directly contributed by us, whether wholly or in part through our
actions or inactions, we commit to promptly investigate allegations and provide effective and satisfactory access to
remedy, by ourselves and/or in cooperation with other stakeholders. Serious cases are escalated to and discussed
with our senior leadership level. To prevent reoccurrence, Samsung will investigate root-causes and apply changes
to systems, processes and practices as needed. Samsung also expects its suppliers to provide or cooperate in the
remediation for workers or other affected individuals, where the supplier has caused or contributed to adverse
impacts. Samsung will work, within reason, with suppliers and other business partners on remediating
infringements, providing guidance and support where linked to Samsung business. Samsung provides a range of
grievance and feedback channels in the spirit of the UNGPs effectiveness criteria, including timely follow-up,
keeping complainants informed of the progress of their grievance and, provide the opportunity to appeal, and
expects suppliers and partners to do so as well. Those channels are open to internal and external stakeholders
including supply chain workers, civil society and other concerned stakeholders. While most of our channels are
operated on corporate level, we also partner with third-party organizations in selected countries to provide
additional channels to our employees. We understand grievance channels as complementary to our eco-system of
other engagement fora which we operate, including our yearly employee temperature check survey and
engagements via works councils, unions, committees and other engagement meetings. Samsung prohibits the use of
retaliation of any form against workers or stakeholders, and is committed to cooperate with - and not obstruct
participation (of workers or other stakeholders) in or the outcome of - judicial and non-judicial mechanisms.

• Transparent disclosure
Samsung regularly publicly discloses and communicates, both internally and externally, through a variety of
different channels on how we fulfil our responsibility to respect human rights, our policy commitments and what
actions we have taken to improve and strengthen our human rights work. This creates corporate accountability
towards our internal and external stakeholders and a feedback loop with our external stakeholders who assess our
information and engage with us, supporting our efforts to improve our performance.

• Stakeholder engagement
We recognize that we are part of an eco-system in which we operate and that we have an impact on its people and
their communities. As part of our efforts to advance human rights within our business operations, we are therefore
committed towards open, active and direct communication with our stakeholders. Towards this end, we
communicate with a wide range of relevant stakeholders including those who may be affected by our actives
including our own employees, suppliers, communities, customers, shareholder, governments, investors,
international organizations and civil society actors to listen to, engage with and learn from them and consider their
input in how we do business. Samsung engages in different multi-stakeholder initiatives with peers, civil society and
other stakeholders to address root causes, implement solutions and advance human rights, acknowledging that
especially the most severe forms of human rights violations require a collaborative effort and innovation. Rights-
holders such as our own and supply chain workers and vulnerable groups including but not limited to migrant
workers are involved directly or via legitimate representatives in selected projects, through audit and (impact)
assessment interviews and through our formalized process to engage with internal worker representatives.
Dedicated community projects are aimed at addressing challenges on local level and to create economic
opportunities.

Governance & accountability

We have established an internal governance structure to manage our business in a sustainable manner and to
implement our human rights commitments accordingly within our business activities. Our Board of Directors,
the highest decision-making body, oversee the sustainability management activities and discuss major issues
related to labor and human rights, ethical and compliance management, social contribution, safety and
health, climate change and environmental protection. The scope of subjects to be discussed at the Board
includes Samsung’s own operations as well as its supply chain. Under the CEO's chair, the Sustainability
Management Council consisting of key executives which meets at least biannually has been established to
promote sustainable management. Our Global Labor and Human Rights Committee of executives and
working-level officers from eight functional organizations* within the company discuss human rights
matters on a monthly basis. Of the matters discussed, we put forward priority matters to the Sustainability
Management Council for decisions at the key management level. Multiple teams across the organization,
including experienced senior human rights professionals, are responsible for managing the day-to-day
responsibilities of implementing this policy and ensure that breaches as well as gaps are addressed
accordingly within our own operations and our supply chain.
* People Team, Legal Team, IR Team, Corporate Sustainability Center, Partner Collaboration Center, Global EHS Center,
Global Technology Research Center, Vendor Operation Improvement TF
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This policy has been informed by internal and external stakeholders and will be
continuously updated based on industry best practices and stakeholder expectations.
Samsung expects the highest standards in conformity of our own employees and supply
chain partners with our principles. It is the management’s responsibility to communicate
the expected standards to our employees and ensure according conduct.

CEO and Vice Chairman

Samsung Electronics

Han Jong-hee

Appendix: SUPPORTING POLICIES, STATEMENTS AND GUIDANCE DOCUMENTS

Samsung’s key policies that further support our commitment to respect human rights:

• Global Code of Conduct • Samsung’s Environmental Policies and

• Business Conduct Guidelines Guidelines
• Supplier Code of Conduct • Samsung Privacy Policy
• Supplier Code of Conduct Guide
• Responsible Minerals Report
• Anti-Discrimination and
• Modern Slavery Statement
Harassment Policy
• Student Worker Policy in China
• Migrant Worker Policy
• Child Labour Prohibition Policy • Guidelines for Apprenticeship in India

• Grievance Resolution Procedure • Sustainability report

※ In case of discrepancy and/or inconsistency between the English version and other language versions, the English version shall prevail

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