Practice Areas
Stephen Fietta KC founded Fietta LLP in 2015. He is one of the world’s leading public international law practitioners. He advises State clients with respect to many of the world’s most high-stakes, high-profile and sensitive public international law issues, including territorial, sovereignty and natural resources disputes, the law of the sea and maritime boundary delimitation, international humanitarian law and the law of armed conflict, international environmental law, transboundary water law, human rights, decolonisation and rights to self-determination, treaty interpretation and international investment law.
Stephen has advised (including as lead and coordinating counsel) on cases before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) (both contentious and advisory opinion proceedings), International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), European Court of Justice, European Court of Human Rights, Inter-American Court of Human Rights and multiple domestic courts. He has acted in State-to-State arbitration proceedings, including under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the Indus Waters Treaty. He has acted in more than 50 investment arbitration cases under the World Bank (ICSID), UNCITRAL, SCC and other rules, a number of which have featured ground-breaking awards on jurisdiction, merits and/or damages.
Stephen was appointed Queen’s Counsel in January 2019. Before establishing Fietta in 2015, Stephen co-founded the world’s first specialist public international law firm (Volterra Fietta) in 2011. Prior to that, he was a partner specialising in public international law at a leading US and global law firm. Both of those practices were consistently top-ranked at the time. Stephen regularly manages large teams of lawyers (including specialist or domestic co-counsel), experts and witnesses across multiple jurisdictions.
Stephen teaches the Geopolitics, Resources and Territory MA course at King’s College, London.
Publications
Stephen has published widely on various public international law topics. Most recently, he co-authored (with Dr Robin Cleverly) A Practitioner’s Guide to Maritime Boundary Delimitation (OUP, 2016). This work has been cited in maritime delimitation cases before both the ICJ and ITLOS.
His articles and commentaries have been published in leading international journals. In 2015, Stephen was awarded the Smit-Lowenfeld Prize for best article in the field of international arbitration. The prize was awarded for his article, co-authored by Dr James Upcher, “Public International Law, Investment Treaties and Commercial Arbitration: an emerging system of complementarity?”, published in Arbitration International.
Stephen is a regular speaker at conferences around the world on topics of public international law, investment arbitration and international dispute resolution. For details of recent speaking engagements, see www.fiettalaw.com
