UBS has well established human resources policies and practices that address issues such as employment, diversity, equal opportunity and discrimination. Such policies also tackle human rights issues, as do policies relating to health and safety practices. UBS’s human resources policies and practices are regularly reviewed to ensure that labor standards are respected.

In line with the firm’s endorsement of the UN Global Compact and its underlying principles, UBS adopted a statement supporting basic human rights in 2006. The “UBS Statement on Human Rights” outlines important human rights issues and sets out the firm’s position on the topic. The implementation of its human rights statement is supported by a responsible supply chain guideline, by the UBS position on controversial activities, and by industry sector guidelines supporting the consistent identification and assessment of environmental and social (including human rights) risks in the firm’s banking activities.

In 2011, UBS along with a number of universal banks considered the "Guiding Principles for the Implementation of the United Nations ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ Framework" on business and human rights. As a group ("Thun Group"), we initiated a process to interpret the Guiding Principles with specific reference to their application to the banking sector.

The international human rights norms are a call upon governments to respect these rights of their citizens to the largest extent possible. Although international human rights are not directly enforceable upon the private sector, it is our view that private companies such as UBS can and should support governments in implementing human rights.

In this spirit, the UBS Statement on Human Rights sets out our approach to promote and respect human rights standards within our sphere of influence. This is in line with our endorsement of the UN Global Compact and its underlying principles. Our ability to promote and respect human rights standards depends on the nature of our relationship with the various stakeholders with which we engage: as an employer, we act in line with the principles underlying human rights; with suppliers, our level of influence is lower, but we can act to a certain extent through the contractual agreements we have with them; our level of influence is limited with our clients.

The human rights principles below describe our aspirations. We endeavor to embed the principles in our culture by integrating them into our business practices and internal communications.

Employees
We respect and support human rights standards through our human resources policies and practices.

Suppliers and Contractors
We consider the business practices of significant suppliers in light of human rights standards and integrate relevant aspects into our contractual relationships with them.

Clients
We aim to promote the responsible use of our products and services by taking human rights standards into account when vetting prospective clients and executing transactions.

We regularly report on our progress in implementing this Statement as part of UBS’s annual reporting.