Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON TRAVEL CONTRACTS (CCV) 655 serve as the author of the Brazilian proposal to draft a Convention on the protection of tourists as consumers (“Proposal concerning a Draft Convention on Co-operation and Access to Justice for International Tourists”) at the Hague Conference of Private International Law 68 . This Proposal aims to create a global network of consumer agencies to inform and help tourists to get access to justice (small claims, ADR and court proceedings) and has been strongly supported by the other Latin-American countries, China, India, Russia and emergent economies in general 69 . The good results of the MERCOSUR Tourist’s Network and the positive experience during the World FIFA Cup, in 2014, and the Rio Olympic Games, in 2016, with the proposed ex ante intervention of consumer agencies to inform and help international tourists – contributing to the prevention of damages – have consolidated the Proposal of the Brazilian Government 70 . The second draft of the Proposal was presented in 2015 and contains ten articles 71 . In March 2018, a feasibility and desirability study on the Draft Convention on Co-Operation and Access to Justice for International Tourists was presented and, in August 2018, the first Expert Group was convened. The following year, a second Expert Group took place, and the consensus was reached in a soft law approach and the need of a second Study, now about the procedural aspects of the subject. Dr Nino Sievi’s “Report on International Instruments and Principles Relevant to the Tourism Project as well as Possible Grounds of Jurisdiction for Matters Relating to International Tourists” concludes that: 1) there is a gap in the legal framework due to inadmissibility of commencing or continuing legal proceedings from abroad – “A tourist is often not able to commence or pursue a legal case in a foreign jurisdiction ” –, and reinforcing 68 LIMA MARQUES, C. (2014). The Brazilian “Draft Convention on Co-operation in Respect of Tourists and Visitors Abroad” at the Hague Conference and the UN World Tourism Organization’s Draft Convention. In Moreno Rodriguez, J. & Lima Marques, C. Los servicios en el Derecho Internacional Privado – Jornadas de la ASADIP 2014 , Porto Alegre: ASADIP, pp. 823-848. 69 MARQUES, Claudia Lima. Towards a global approach to protect foreign tourists: building governance through a new cooperation net in consumer and tourist issues. In: SIERRALTA, Anibal, & MARQUES, Claudia Lima. (Eds.). Derecho internacional, mundialización y gobernanza. (pp. 425-455). Asunción: CEDEP/ASADIP, 2012, pp. 449 & ff. 70 Vid . Prel. Doc. No. 2, of January – Proposal by the Government of Brazil on a draft convention on co-operation and access to justice for international tourists, available at https://www.hcch.net/en/projects/ legislative-projects/protection-of-tourists. 71 Available in https://assets.hcch.net/docs/74b12153-45a4-45fa-a86e-814fa5bf9d2a.pdf (accessed on 28 July 2020).