Sustainable Tourism Law

182 SUSTAINABLE TOURISM LAW Despite Soft Law not being a source of International Law and having no legally binding force, Soft Law may have certain legal relevance and provide guidelines and principles with an international, national or regional scope that is able to influence the legislative situation. Despite the lack of binding force of most legal instruments on Sustainable Tourism, the goals are beginning to be felt in policy, business practices and consumer behaviour. There is an evolution in the legislative technique in the matter of sustainable tourism: in the 1980s, it was based on Declarations; Charters; Global Codes (Manila Declaration on World Tourism (1980); Charter for Sustainable Tourism (Lanzarote, Spain, 1995); Agenda 21 for the Travel and Tourism Industry (1996); Global Code of Ethics for Tourism (1999); World Charter for Sustainable Tourism+ 20 (2015). Currently, there is a tendency to use conventions: UNWTO Convention on Tourism Ethics (2017) and Draft UNWTOConvention for the ProtectionofTourists and theRights andObligations of Service Providers (2017), which, in the words of the WorldTravel Organization, show how the approvals of these Conventions are “historical decisions”. Many of the Sustainable Development Goals have also been invoked in different normative texts of the States. There is no doubt that Soft Law on Sustainable Tourism has served to bring about changes in policies, business practices and consumer behaviour. Soft Law as a harbinger of Hard Law; Soft Law as an alternative to Hard Law; Soft Law as a complement to Hard Law and even as a parameter of interpretation of Hard Law. Whatever the case, Soft Laws on Sustainable Tourism have served to bring about changes. There is a process of evolution: the continuous motivation that emerges from the world community has allowed the application of both the classical legislative technique used for the creation of international treaties and the modern legislative technique of Soft Law, through the participation of the subjects of International Law. However, the evolution has been too slow. Note that since the Manila Declaration onWorld Tourism (1980) to the UNWTO Convention on Tourism Ethics (2017) 37 years have passed. Sustainable Tourism needs Soft Law but also Hard Law to create a well-defined legal and regulatory framework for the sustainability of tourism. The binding force of legislative instruments for SustainableTourism Law is absolutely necessary when trying to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and get a greater commitment on the part of the States, in order to make the objectives effective and to have legal consequences in case of non-compliance.