Mr Stephen Fietta KC > Fietta LLP > London, England > Lawyer Profile

Mr Stephen Fietta KC

0203 889 9800 stephen.fietta@fiettalaw.com View profile View profile

Position

Stephen Fietta KC founded Fietta LLP in 2015. He has practised at the forefront of public international law, whether within government or private practice, for more than 20 years and is widely recognised as one of the world’s leading public international law practitioners. He regularly advises sovereign clients with respect to high-profile and sensitive public international law issues, including as regards sovereignty disputes, the law of the sea (including maritime boundary delimitation), international environmental law, human rights, treaty interpretation and international investment law.

Stephen has advised on cases before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), European Court of Justice, European Court of Human Rights and multiple domestic courts. He has appeared in more than 40 pending and decided arbitration cases under the World Bank (ICSID), UNCITRAL and other rules, a number of which have featured ground-breaking awards on jurisdiction, merits and/or damages.

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 top-ranked at the time. Stephen regularly manages large teams of lawyers (including specialist or domestic co-counsel), experts and witnesses in multiple jurisdictions.

Stephen is a Visiting Senior Lecturer at King’s College, London. In January 2015, Stephen was awarded the Smit-Lowenfield Prize by the International Arbitration Club of New York for the best article published globally in the field of international arbitration, entitled Public International Law, Investment Treaties and Commercial Arbitration: an emerging system of complementarity? Stephen has co-authored (with Dr Robin Cleverly) A Practioners guide to Maritime Delimitation, published in March 2016, which has subsequently been cited before both the ICJ and ITLOS.

DIRECTORY RECOGNITION

Chambers Global Directory ranks Stephen as one of the world’s top public international law practitioners.  Chambers Global Directory 2023 describes him as “hugely knowledgeable and tactically very astute”.  Chambers UK Directory 2022 ranks him as one of only two “star individuals” in the United Kingdom.  It comments that he “is regularly instructed on complex mandates” describes him as “a first-class international lawyer” with “a remarkably detailed as well as broad knowledge and insight into a wide variety of fields of law”.  A previous edition quoted sources as identifying Stephen as “a world-leading PIL practitioner and an unflappable advocate” who is “meticulous, thorough and thoughtful”.

The Legal 500 has consistently ranked Stephen as a “leading individual” in public international law.  He is one of only four lawyers included in its “Hall of Fame” which “highlights individuals who have received consistent praise by their clients for continued excellence”. Legal 500 Directory 2021 identifies Stephen as “a master of his field”, who can “translate the complexity of issues in a simple and direct manner”.  Previous editions have commented that he is “calm, measured and unflappable”, a “simply fantastic practitioner” and that “his professionalism and work ethic are remarkable”.

In June 2020, Best Lawyers named Stephen “Lawyer of the Year 2021” in its public international law practice category.  The award is given to a single lawyer in each practice category based upon extensive peer reviews.

Who’s Who Legal again recognised Stephen as among the world’s leading arbitration experts in its 2020 edition, classifying him as both a “Global Leader” and a “Thought Leader”. The recognition follows independent research with clients and peers.

Stephen was featured in the global Who’s Who in Public International Law (published in 2007).  In March 2013, Stephen was named among the top 100 lawyers in London by the inaugural UK edition of Super Lawyers. The Global Arbitration Review 2011 named Stephen as one of the world’s leading international arbitration practitioners under the age of 45 (the “45 under 45”).

Career

Languages

English (native), French and Italian (reading and conversational)

Education

Queen’s Counsel (appointed January 2019)

Solicitor-Advocate (Higher Courts Civil Proceedings) (2016)

Admitted to practise in England & Wales (1997)

B.A. (1993) and M.A. (1994) in Law, University of Cambridge, Winner, Cambridge University Prize for Commercial Law

Legal Practice Course (Distinction), University of Law, Guildford

Stephen is a Visiting Senior Lecturer at Kings College London, where he teaches the MA course “Geopolitics, Territory and Security”

Stephen has also lectured on various public international law topics on LLM and MSc courses at University College London (UCL), the London School of Economics (LSE) and University of Southampton

Leisure

Cycling, tennis, skiing, history, philosophy and writing