Ambassador Laurie Fulton is a Partner in the law firm Williams & Connolly LLP. Her areas of practice include cybersecurity and data breach, government investigations, and white-collar criminal defence. She is a member of the Council of American Ambassadors, and was recognized as one of “Washington’s Top Lawyers” by Washingtonian Magazine in 2004.
As the U.S. Ambassador to Denmark, she supported visits by U.S. President Barack Obama, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, six other Members of the Cabinet and Congressional Delegations, and managed U.S. relations with Denmark in national security, counter-terrorism, arctic policy, piracy and international law enforcement, as well as diplomatic affairs. She organized and co-hosted the Conference on the Role of Women in Global Security for the U.S. and Nordic-Baltic countries in October 2010 in Copenhagen to identify best practices for assisting women living in post-conflict Afghanistan, Liberia, and Uganda. Ambassador Fulton also served as Honorary President of AmCham Denmark and the Danish-American Business Forum. She co-founded Green Partnerships for Growth, a bi-lateral, public-private initiative to develop U.S.–Danish business opportunities in green technology and sustainable growth sectors. Ambassador Fulton serves on the Board of Trustees of premier global leadership organization, Meridian International Center.
Ambassador Fulton, you have had a distinguished career. Share with us the role that you played in Copenhagen.
It was an amazing experience, having the opportunity to be United States Ambassador to Denmark from 2009 to 2013, not only because Denmark is literally one of our top allies…it's frequently ranked in the top five. I also grew up feeling this very close connection to Denmark. My great-grandfather, who was a small landowner, was a Member of Parliament in Denmark.
As a lawyer at Williams & Connolly, you had plenty of dealings in advocating for your client. How is that similar to being Ambassador in terms of your legal preparation?
As the U.S. Ambassador in Denmark, I had one client. It was the United States of America, and everything I did was on behalf of that client. As a lawyer, this way of looking at things was very helpful, whether I was doing public diplomacy and outreach and answering questions about I.S. policy or whether I was, as I was sometimes, negotiating tough issues with the Danes.
For a relatively small country, [Danes] are extraordinarily active and contribute far beyond what they have to on the security front.
President Obama said about the Danes many times, they punch above their weight. They have been terrific allies and terrific members of NATO, including more recently when they have started efforts to be sure that the NATO countries were continuing to support Afghanistan even after the troops leave.
One of the particular issues that you care about a lot is the role that women can play in peace and security, and I know that when you were in Copenhagen, you advanced the visibility and the awareness of the topic. What do we mean when we're talking about women in peace and security?
You know, this has been a passion of mine for about three decades, maybe more. It’s important for everybody to understand, particularly the people in the United States, how important it is to have women engaged in their own communities around the world if we are going to have prosperity and global security. Before I left this country to become Ambassador in Denmark, I met with former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, among others, and I said, "You know, Madeline, I've got this idea to host a conference in Denmark about the role of women in global security." And she encouraged me. She said, "That's a fabulous idea. Too good for it to be just bilateral. Make it Scandinavian- U.S. Even better, make it Nordic-Baltic-U.S.," and we did.
Denmark co-hosted with the U.S. Embassy a conference on the role of women in global security in October 2010. It happened to be on the tenth anniversary of UN Resolution 1325, which is sort of known as the Women in Peacekeeping resolution…I worked with the Danes…I worked with all of my U.S. Ambassador colleagues in the Nordic and Baltic countries. We had speakers from the UN, from the EU, and our first keynote speaker was then-Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. And Hillary Clinton participated by video.
The point of the conference was how like-minded countries effectively help women become more involved in their own communities. The idea was to come up with best practices.
What were some the outcomes from the conference?
Secretary General Rasmussen told me that, as a result of that conference, one of the many deliverables was that NATO created a position of Special Representative for UN 1325. NATO also started to consider the effects on women for every one of their programs. That's huge.
Do you think we've made progress in making women a central part of the peace building process as we aspired to in UN Security Council Resolution 1325?
I think we've made a lot of progress. You can look back to Liberia when they ousted Charles Taylor, and the important role of the Women in White, as they were called then, who stood in sort of silent protest along the sides of the road, but when finally he was captured and people were trying to have their negotiations about what to do with him, women were not at the table. They were not part of that, and it was a very difficult time and the men were starting to disperse. The Women in White formed a chain around the building where the negotiations were and they said, "You're not leaving here until you settle this." You know, we need to find ways to get more women at the table, but I think we're making progress.
People have strong feelings about the United States because we are a major world power, and we’re also an ally. How did you try to move the needle in terms of the public opinion in Denmark?
I thought that one of my most important roles as the United States Ambassador was public diplomacy. It was outreach to Danes around the country, not just the Ministers and the government officials in Copenhagen. It is also constantly reaching out to the next generation…I spoke at high schools, trade schools, vocational schools, and colleges. One of the other things I did was I took the Embassy out of Copenhagen one day. I took it two hours away to Vejle…It was a very important thing to have done because it just made that whole peninsula, which is where most of the Danes live, feel like, you know, the U.S. Embassy cared about them because we'd come across.
What do you mean by taking the Embassy there?
Well, we planned this ahead of time. We picked out the site. I'd sent some of my young foreign service officers over there to work with the mayor, and we had representatives from our commercial and political sections, and of course our consular officer went over there, so we could deal with anybody who had visa issues. We took the public affairs section. We had an open public meeting, and then we had a roundtable with businesses. We had a Facebook meeting with young people after school got out.
Could you comment on the value of having emerging leaders see America firsthand and get out beyond Washington and engage communities around America?
IVLP, International Visitors Leadership Program, in my view, is one of the most important programs the Department of State has, even for our good allies like Denmark, because it gives young leaders the opportunity to come to the United States not just as a tourist to Washington and New York, but to go other places, to go to Utah, Colorado, or Minnesota. And the repercussions from that are long-lasting. There are a number of Parliamentarians and Ministers in Denmark who have either been on an IVLP program or perhaps the German Marshall Fund program. Of course, it's important to countries where there are more emerging democracies, but it's just as important for those countries that we want to continue to be our stalwart allies for 20 years. We need them to know us.
The Ambassadors’ Forum is a joint initiative of Meridian International Center, the Council of American Ambassadors, and the Diplomatic Courier magazine. The series captures the views of Ambassadors from around the world on the critical role of diplomacy in addressing current global challenges.
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The Ambassadors Forum: Interview with Ambassador Laurie Fulton
March 11, 2015
Ambassador Laurie Fulton is a Partner in the law firm Williams & Connolly LLP. Her areas of practice include cybersecurity and data breach, government investigations, and white-collar criminal defence. She is a member of the Council of American Ambassadors, and was recognized as one of “Washington’s Top Lawyers” by Washingtonian Magazine in 2004.
As the U.S. Ambassador to Denmark, she supported visits by U.S. President Barack Obama, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, six other Members of the Cabinet and Congressional Delegations, and managed U.S. relations with Denmark in national security, counter-terrorism, arctic policy, piracy and international law enforcement, as well as diplomatic affairs. She organized and co-hosted the Conference on the Role of Women in Global Security for the U.S. and Nordic-Baltic countries in October 2010 in Copenhagen to identify best practices for assisting women living in post-conflict Afghanistan, Liberia, and Uganda. Ambassador Fulton also served as Honorary President of AmCham Denmark and the Danish-American Business Forum. She co-founded Green Partnerships for Growth, a bi-lateral, public-private initiative to develop U.S.–Danish business opportunities in green technology and sustainable growth sectors. Ambassador Fulton serves on the Board of Trustees of premier global leadership organization, Meridian International Center.
Ambassador Fulton, you have had a distinguished career. Share with us the role that you played in Copenhagen.
It was an amazing experience, having the opportunity to be United States Ambassador to Denmark from 2009 to 2013, not only because Denmark is literally one of our top allies…it's frequently ranked in the top five. I also grew up feeling this very close connection to Denmark. My great-grandfather, who was a small landowner, was a Member of Parliament in Denmark.
As a lawyer at Williams & Connolly, you had plenty of dealings in advocating for your client. How is that similar to being Ambassador in terms of your legal preparation?
As the U.S. Ambassador in Denmark, I had one client. It was the United States of America, and everything I did was on behalf of that client. As a lawyer, this way of looking at things was very helpful, whether I was doing public diplomacy and outreach and answering questions about I.S. policy or whether I was, as I was sometimes, negotiating tough issues with the Danes.
For a relatively small country, [Danes] are extraordinarily active and contribute far beyond what they have to on the security front.
President Obama said about the Danes many times, they punch above their weight. They have been terrific allies and terrific members of NATO, including more recently when they have started efforts to be sure that the NATO countries were continuing to support Afghanistan even after the troops leave.
One of the particular issues that you care about a lot is the role that women can play in peace and security, and I know that when you were in Copenhagen, you advanced the visibility and the awareness of the topic. What do we mean when we're talking about women in peace and security?
You know, this has been a passion of mine for about three decades, maybe more. It’s important for everybody to understand, particularly the people in the United States, how important it is to have women engaged in their own communities around the world if we are going to have prosperity and global security. Before I left this country to become Ambassador in Denmark, I met with former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, among others, and I said, "You know, Madeline, I've got this idea to host a conference in Denmark about the role of women in global security." And she encouraged me. She said, "That's a fabulous idea. Too good for it to be just bilateral. Make it Scandinavian- U.S. Even better, make it Nordic-Baltic-U.S.," and we did.
Denmark co-hosted with the U.S. Embassy a conference on the role of women in global security in October 2010. It happened to be on the tenth anniversary of UN Resolution 1325, which is sort of known as the Women in Peacekeeping resolution…I worked with the Danes…I worked with all of my U.S. Ambassador colleagues in the Nordic and Baltic countries. We had speakers from the UN, from the EU, and our first keynote speaker was then-Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. And Hillary Clinton participated by video.
The point of the conference was how like-minded countries effectively help women become more involved in their own communities. The idea was to come up with best practices.
What were some the outcomes from the conference?
Secretary General Rasmussen told me that, as a result of that conference, one of the many deliverables was that NATO created a position of Special Representative for UN 1325. NATO also started to consider the effects on women for every one of their programs. That's huge.
Do you think we've made progress in making women a central part of the peace building process as we aspired to in UN Security Council Resolution 1325?
I think we've made a lot of progress. You can look back to Liberia when they ousted Charles Taylor, and the important role of the Women in White, as they were called then, who stood in sort of silent protest along the sides of the road, but when finally he was captured and people were trying to have their negotiations about what to do with him, women were not at the table. They were not part of that, and it was a very difficult time and the men were starting to disperse. The Women in White formed a chain around the building where the negotiations were and they said, "You're not leaving here until you settle this." You know, we need to find ways to get more women at the table, but I think we're making progress.
People have strong feelings about the United States because we are a major world power, and we’re also an ally. How did you try to move the needle in terms of the public opinion in Denmark?
I thought that one of my most important roles as the United States Ambassador was public diplomacy. It was outreach to Danes around the country, not just the Ministers and the government officials in Copenhagen. It is also constantly reaching out to the next generation…I spoke at high schools, trade schools, vocational schools, and colleges. One of the other things I did was I took the Embassy out of Copenhagen one day. I took it two hours away to Vejle…It was a very important thing to have done because it just made that whole peninsula, which is where most of the Danes live, feel like, you know, the U.S. Embassy cared about them because we'd come across.
What do you mean by taking the Embassy there?
Well, we planned this ahead of time. We picked out the site. I'd sent some of my young foreign service officers over there to work with the mayor, and we had representatives from our commercial and political sections, and of course our consular officer went over there, so we could deal with anybody who had visa issues. We took the public affairs section. We had an open public meeting, and then we had a roundtable with businesses. We had a Facebook meeting with young people after school got out.
Could you comment on the value of having emerging leaders see America firsthand and get out beyond Washington and engage communities around America?
IVLP, International Visitors Leadership Program, in my view, is one of the most important programs the Department of State has, even for our good allies like Denmark, because it gives young leaders the opportunity to come to the United States not just as a tourist to Washington and New York, but to go other places, to go to Utah, Colorado, or Minnesota. And the repercussions from that are long-lasting. There are a number of Parliamentarians and Ministers in Denmark who have either been on an IVLP program or perhaps the German Marshall Fund program. Of course, it's important to countries where there are more emerging democracies, but it's just as important for those countries that we want to continue to be our stalwart allies for 20 years. We need them to know us.
The Ambassadors’ Forum is a joint initiative of Meridian International Center, the Council of American Ambassadors, and the Diplomatic Courier magazine. The series captures the views of Ambassadors from around the world on the critical role of diplomacy in addressing current global challenges.
