Sustainable Tourism Law

204 SUSTAINABLE TOURISM LAW both the destination country and the country of origin, to provide assistance, cooperation and information to tourists during an emergency, including any procedure needed to repatriate travellers. The latter is a really important issue and has significant value based on the fact that, for the first time, the UNWTO adopted a joint international Convention. As a matter of fact, until 2017 the UNWTO was the only United Nations Specialized Agency that had not developed international conventions aimed at regulating issues related to its specific key-area. The legal framework of the draft Convention is represented by Art. 12, lett. n , of the UNWTO Statutes that enables the General Assembly to prepare and recommend international agreements on any matter falling within the scope of action of the Organization 4 . With this purpose in mind, the Agency first adopted the “ Guidelines for the adoption of the draft UNWTO Conventions by the General Assembly ” 5 as a legal framework to govern disciplinary interventions, such as the preparation of the potential approval or adoption of a draft Convention on the protection of tourists and on the rights and obligations of tourism service providers, in tandem with the draft Framework Convention on Tourism Ethics 6 . As far as the latter is concerned, the General Assembly has achieved an outstanding result, since the UNWTO managed to approve the “ UNWTO Framework Convention on Tourism Ethics ” 7 on 15 September 2017, which transposed the Code of Ethics for Tourism 8 into the first International Convention adopted by the United Nations Specialized Agency 9 . 4 Under Art. 12 of the Statutes , the UNWTO General Assembly “may consider any question and make recommendations on any matter within the competence of the Organization. Its functions, other than those which have been conferred on it elsewhere in the present Statutes, shall be: [...] (n) to prepare and recommend international agreements on any question that falls within the competence of the Organization”. 5 See, in particular, Annex VI, “Guidelines for the adoption of the draft UNWTO conventions by the General Assembly”, of the Report on implementation of the GeneralWorking Programme 2016-2017, CAM/61/4/Part I (Madrid, April 2017), prepared for the 61 th meeting of San Salvador, El Salvador-Roatán, Honduras, of 30 and 31 May 2017. 6 Respectively, Resolution A/RES/654(XXI) and Resolution A/RES/668(XXI), adopted by the General Assembly during the 21st biennial session which took place in Medellín, Colombia, on 12-17 September 2015. 7 The UNWTO Framework Convention on Tourism Ethics has been approved by the UNWTO General Assembly with Resolution A/RES/707(XXII) during the 22nd biennial session of c2017, with the favourable vote of 51 States and the abstention of 23 Countries, among which was Italy. 8 The Global Code of Ethics for Tourism has been adopted with Resolution A/RES/406(XII) by the 13th UNWTO General Assembly in Santiago del Cile (27 September – 1 October 1999) and its fundamental objective is to promote responsible, sustainable and accessible tourism, following the Manila Declarations of 1980 on World Tourism and those of 1997 on the Social Impact of Tourism, as well as the Charter of Tourism and the Tourist Code adopted in Sofia in 1985 under the auspices of the UNWTO. 9 The Convention, open for signature by the Member States of the UNWTO and all the Member States of the United Nations, shall enter into force on the thirtieth day following the deposit of the tenth instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession (see Art. 20, par. 1).