Just Fair – what we do?

An economic, social and cultural rights movement is beginning to emerge in England. Just Fair works as a central hub and advocate for this movement. We aim to ensure that law, policy and practice complies with our international human rights obligations.

Just Fair does this using all the means at our disposal: including monitoring compliance with international human rights treaties, litigation, budgetary analysis, public education and the empowering of groups and individuals whose rights are being denied.

Why we do it?

The United Kingdom is bound by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and has the sixth highest GDP in the world. Yet, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in both their 2002 and 2009 Concluding Observations, raised concerns that the UK is failing to adequately secure these rights.

Why is it, for instance, that 13 million people in the UK live in poverty? This poverty has a disastrous impact on the right to obtain the highest attainable standard of living. For many people in the UK, the right to just and fair working conditions is a figment of the imagination. Almost 50 per cent of home workers, for instance, and around 20 per cent of migrant workers, may be paid less than the minimum wage, some earning as little as £1 per hour.

But it seems likely that the situation is set to get even worse.The ‘Emergency Budget’ introduced spending reductions of £32 billion per year by 2014-15, including £11 billion of welfare reform savings. The impact of cuts in spending on public services will be severe, with an average cut to households of £1,308 per year. The cuts are also set to exacerbate inequality, with the poorest tenth of households losing income and services equivalent to 20.3% of their household income compared to just 1.5% for the richest tenth of households.

In short, there is a real and pressing need, in light of the UK’s deep rooted inequality and extensive public service cuts, to advocate for the protection of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the UK and ensure that everyone enjoys their human rights to health, employment, education, social security and an adequate standard of living.

Become a Member

Joining the Consortium is easy. To become a member, simply click and view the terms of reference and send an email to info@just-fair.co.uk to confirm your interest in joining.

We aim to offer maximum benefit with minimal burden. As such, members need only commit to attending one evidence gathering consultation a year and to sending through relevant research/policy reports via email.

In sum, the overall time commitment can be as little as half a day per year, though all organisations have the opportunity to collaborate more fully through Consortium monitoring and advocacy activities.

If you would like further information, please email info@just-fair.co.uk

Fair Bonus Terms at Casinos

An aspect of fairness that we put a special focus on involves online gambling. We monitor thousands of casino bonuses offered by UK licensed operators to make sure that their terms and conditions are fair and just to players. Casino bonuses are tempting offers that lure new players to online casinos every day, but are they scoped in a way that makes them fair for gamblers? Also, we make sure that casino bonus offers are marketed the right way. Which means, marketing ads for bonuses should not in any way be targeting vulnerable people.

Eventually, our aim would be to put together a comprehensive report about online casino bonuses and submit it to the UK Gambling Commission. In the report, all bonus offers from licensed casinos would be awarded a certain fairness score and ideally, all operators offers rated below a certain threshold would receive a warning from the UKGC itself in order to make the T&C’s for their bonuses more fair.

We hope to reach our goal with our initiative, to make the world of online gambling a bit more fair for everybody.