MinterEllison Partner Peter Bartlett co-chaired the International Task Force, alongside Almudena Arpón de Mendívil and Harry Rubin.

The task force recommended introducing an international pandemic treaty to encourage policymakers across the world to work together in managing current pandemics and avoiding future ones. The report has called for a globally coordinated, collaborative legal policy effort to enhance international communication and cooperation.

Mr Bartlett said: ‘The long-term goal of the international community must be a global pandemic treaty. In the meantime, meaningful improvements to existing international regimes in specific areas will optimise the current effort and help to control the impact of future pandemics.’

Specifically, the report included recommendations such as harmonising border controls and import-export rules, as well as laws regulating therapeutics and vaccines for fast track approval.

Further recommendations also highlighted:

• communications, such as relaxing consent requirements to enable contract tracing,
• intellectual property, so that medical treatments can be globally accessible and
• employment, to apply international principles around mandatory testing and vaccinations.

The task force presented its findings to over 1,500 people at a global showcase on Wednesday, 27 October 2021.

"COVID-19 has illustrated how policy and law plays an important role in helping society manage the current pandemic efforts and mitigate risks for the future. Through these recommendations, we can learn from past successes and failures, and apply those lessons for the future," Mr Bartlett said.

The International Bar Association (IBA) is made up of 80,000 lawyers from most of the world’s leading law firms, and 190 bar associations and law societies spanning more than 170 countries.

Read the IBA COVID-19 Legal Policy Task Force's full recommendations.