Sustainable Tourism Law

808 SUSTAINABLE TOURISM LAW travelling across international borders, anymore than they can stop birds from flying, deer from running, or diseases from spreading. The numerous immigration, travel, and security restrictions has only resulted in creating an underground “servant class” to work and slave for the more developed countries’ legal residents and citizens. These servants are trapped and forced to cater to the desires of sex tourists, sell black market products, and slave in unsafe factories because travel and trade restrictions prevent them from producing and disturbing products for themselves legally. Their economics are stagnated and are only in the shadow of the developed countries they are forced to serve with services and labor because the laws of immigration, currency exchange, and intellectual property have put shackles on them. Tourism and sustainable development are about jobs and future jobs based on legitimate and ethical products, and as long as the law of the western states encourages illegal travel to support the underground immigrant economy and black market goods, true sustainable development will never occur. Likewise, Cultural Heritage is the product and property of the cultures that produce it. To have national treasures dispersed, absorbed, and consumed by western tourists and museums, halts the future sustainable development of the same people that produced these treasures. When property becomes of such important significance as to have an impact on the lives of all of humankind, it is the common heritage of humanity – and belongs to us all – not just western museums and corporations that grew fromthe age of imperialismand colonialism. Natural heritage sites also belong to all of humankind, not just those that find nature’s wonders within their nation states’ borders. While the economic impact that tourism plays on local, national, regional, and international economies may be apparent, it is also true that cultural heritage and property belonging to the common heritage of humankind play a very significant role in tourism and sustainable development. Their protection and development create jobs for everyone, and concerns group rights for the living and for future generations. The laws of Egypt, Nigeria, Mexico, Dominican Republic as well as the USA, provide examples that seek to balance the needs of the present to allow all economies to develop, while preserving jobs, culture, and tourism for the future of all humankind.