Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

648 COLLECTIVE COMMENTARY ABOUT THE NEW PACKAGE TRAVEL DIRECTIVE rights and for unconscionable clauses vis-à-vis consumers 33 , as well as undermining the internationality of the consumer relations 34 , has not achieved its uniformisation goal. Nevertheless, perhaps this UNIDROIT effort’s failure can be explained by external factors too. II. THE FALL OF GLOBAL SUBSTANTIVE UNIFORM SOLUTIONS AND NEW INTERNATIONAL EFFORTS ON TOURIST PROTECTION In the author’s opinion, three main external changes have lead to the unsuccess of the 1970 CCV Convention as a truly global uniform law on travel contracts: the first is the rise of domestic and regional consumer law – the traveller is now a consumer and a particularly important and demanding one; the second are the changes in the travel industry itself, with new technologies and intermediaries that allow consumers to book directly in foreign countries, without the presence of a travel organiser or travel agency in the country of origin of the tourist; and the third is the decline of international hard law and global solutions – a new diversification of international sources (soft law, procedural and ODR solutions) 35 , as we can see in the new international efforts on Tourist Protection. The global substantive UNWTO Draft of a “Convention on the protection of tourists and tourism service providers” did not accomplish its purpose, being now incorporated into the UNWTO Ethical Code (soft law). The Brazilian suggestion concerning a global Convention on Cooperation and Access of Justice to International Tourist has also had difficulties to be accepted by developed countries, becoming only a soft law or guiding principles about ODR in Tourism. Let us see these challenges and changes, one by one. 33 These “intermediary clauses” were very common and, in Brazil, were only banished by the 1990 Consumer Protection Code. However, Law 12.974, of 2014 (just before the World Soccer Cup), tried to reinstall the validity of these clauses, but without success thanks to a presidential veto, see MARQUES, Claudia Lima, SOARES, Ardyllis, & LIMA, Clarissa Costa de. Lei 12.974, de 15.04.2014, dispõe sobre as atividades das agências de turismo, in Revista de Direito do Consumidor, vol. 95/2014, pp. 349-358, September-October 2014, pp. 349 & ff. 34 BASEDOW, Jürgen. The Law of Open Society , The Hague Academy of Private International Law, Leiden: Brill, 2015, p. 112; the author calls this process “domestication of international fact situations”. 35 See GONZÁLEZ CAMPOS, J. D. Diversification, spécialisation, flexibilisation et matérialisation des régles de Droit internatioanal privé. Cours général, in Recueil des Cours, 2000, t. 287, pp. 67 e seguintes.