28 August, 2023: Negotiations to improve the international response for future pandemics are underway through talks for a new World Health Organisation Global Pandemic Agreement and amendments to the existing International Health Regulations.

22 August, 2023: The High Court in Pretoria, South Africa has ruled that Covid vaccine procurement contracts and related documents had to be made public. Judge Anthony Millar said “it is, in my view, self-evident that there is public interest in the disclosure of the records.”

18 August, 2023: The public health organisation Make Medicines Affordable has released a report outlining the affordability of Covid vaccines in 17 middle-income countries between 2021-2022.

7 August, 2023: German utility company, RWE’s, €1.4 billion euros Investor State Dispute (ISDS) case against the Netherland’s climate laws was ruled as inadmissible under EU law by the German Federal Court, based on previous rulings by the European Court of Justice.

4 August, 2023: India is currently negotiating Trade Agreements (FTAs) with the UK and EU, among other countries, which include demands for stricter intellectual property rules, threatening India’s production of generic medicines and role as “pharmacy of the world.”

August 1, 2023: Six years after the Colombian Court ruled to stop the expansion of a massive open-pit mine to protect the rights of Indigenous Wayúu and Afro-Colombian communities, the decision has yet to be implemented.

28 July, 2023: Despite widespread calls for transparency, to this day, nearly all publicly funded Covid-19 vaccine procurement contracts remain confidential.

25 July, 2023: There has been increasing criticism of the process for negotiating the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) with the recent conclusion of the fourth round IPEF negotiations in Busan, South Korea which reported incremental progress.

July 19, 2023: Global Pandemic Agreement discussions aimed at ensuring equitable access to medicines in the case of a future global health emergency have resumed this week at the World Health Organisation (WHO).

July 17, 2023: Trade Minister Farrell  and Prime minster Albanese announced last week that EU concessions in negotiating the Australia-EU FTA were not good enough and that Australia would not sign a deal unless it had real commercial benefits for Australia.