Thomas Fitschen

Thomas Fitschen as rapporteur for the UNCTAD Trade and Development Board (2013)

Thomas Fitschen (born April 6, 1959 in Oldenburg ) is a German diplomat . He has been Ambassador to Australia since August 2019 ; the consular district also includes Nauru , Papua New Guinea , the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu .

life and career

Fitschen began studying law at the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel in 1978 and then worked as a lawyer until 1989 . He was a research assistant at the University of Saarland (Saarbrücken) and at the Walther Schücking Institute for International Law (Kiel). In 2003 or 2004, Fitschen was employed in Saarbrücken with the work “The international legal assignment of state documents in the event of a change of rule over national territory “ PhD in Law .

In 1990 Fitschen joined the Foreign Service . He initially worked in the department for international law issues (1991 to 1993), then at the Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic of Germany to the United Nations (1993 to 1996) and at the German Embassy in Manila (1996 to 1999). He then worked in the department for international cooperation in the fight against crime (1999 to 2001), as deputy head of the Global Issues Task Force in Berlin (2001 to 2005) and became legal advisor to the German UN mission in New York City and representative in the legal committee of the General Assembly set up by the United Nations (2005 to 2008). Between 2008 and 2011 Fitschen headed the unit for conceptual questions of the United Nations and political questions in the General Assembly, and he was also deputy head of the working group promoting the rule of law. He was then a faculty member at the Geneva Center for Security Policy (2011 to 2012) and Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of Germany to the United Nations in Geneva (2012 to 2015). Fitschen then worked at the Federal Foreign Office as a representative for the United Nations, counter-terrorism and international cyber policy (2015 to 2018) as well as for cyber foreign policy and cybersecurity (2018 to 2019).

Since August 2019 he is Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany with headquarters in Canberra , in charge of Australia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

Fitschen is married and has two daughters.

Publications (selection)

• The legal fate of state files and archives in the event of a change of control over state territory. Nomos Verlag , Baden-Baden 2004, ISBN 978-3-8329-0532-3 .

Web links

• Ambassador Dr. Thomas Fitschen. In: australien.diplo.de , accessed on October 14, 2019.
• Potsdam Conference for National Cyber ​​Security. In: hpi.de (PDF; p. 30).