While serving in the Ministry of External Relations, Amorim spent large amounts of time working as an ambassador to the United Nations. Most notably, he represented Brazil on the Kosovo–Yugoslavia sanctions committee in 1998, and the Security Council panel on Iraq in 1999. Amorim was named as Brazil’s permanent ambassador to the United Nations and the WTO later that year, and served for two years before becoming ambassador to the United Kingdom in 2001.
The United Nations Security Council established a committee on March 31, 1998 to monitor and implement the arms embargo on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). The committee was created in response to the violence against the Kosovar Albanian community in Kosovo. The sanctions were intended to help foster peace and stability in Kosovo. The committee was dissolved on September 10, 2001, when the sanctions were lifted.
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The conflict in Kosovo was centered on the ethnic Albanian community’s desire for independence from Serbia. The [CIA-backed] Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) rebelled against Serbian rule in 1998, leading to violence.
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The Kosovo War, which lasted from 1998–99, was the result of the breakup of Yugoslavia. The political status of Kosovo is still a source of contention between the Serbian government and the Government of Kosovo. In 2008, the United States and most members of the European Union recognized Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia, but Serbia, Russia, and other countries did not.
On 30 January 1999, the Security Council decided that it would be useful to establish three separate panels on Iraq and to receive recommendations from them no later than 15 April 1999. In paragraph 2 of document S/1999/100, the Security Council invited Ambassador Celso L. N. Amorim of Brazil to chair each of the panels.
Of those leaders, much of the credit goes to President Lula who has become a bit of a rock star on the international scene, harnessing energy, drive, charisma, uncanny intuition, and common sense so effectively that his lack of formal education has hardly been an impediment. Some goes to other members of his team, such as his chief of staff Dilma Rousseff, a former energy minister who has become a very tough chief of staff and a possible successor to Lula. But I believe a large amount of it ought to go to Celso Amorim, who has masterminded a transformation of Brazil’s role in the world that is almost unprecedented in modern history. He has been Lula’s foreign minister since 2003 (he also served in the same role in the 1990s) but I think there is a fair case to be made that he is currently the world’s most successful foreign minister.
It is impossible to pinpoint just one turning point in Amorim’s efforts to transform Brazil from a lumbering regional power of dubious international clout into one of the most important players on the world stage, acknowledged by global consensus to play an unprecedented leading role. It may have come when he played a central role helping to engineer a pushback by emerging countries against a business-as-usual power play by the U.S. and Europe during the Cancun trade talks in 2003. It might have been the canny way the Brazilians have used issues such as their biofuels leadership to forge new dialogues and influence either with the United States or with other emerging powers. It certainly involved his embrace of the idea of transforming the BRICs from acronym to important geopolitical collaboration, working with his counterparts in Russia, India and China to institutionalize the dialogue between the countries and to coordinate their messages. (Arguably the BRIC helped most by this alliance is Brazil. Russia, China and India all earn places at the table due to military capabilities, population size, economic clout or resources. Brazil has all these things…but less than the others.) It also involved countless other things from the Brazil’s deepened and tightened ties with countries like China, it’s promotion of both investment flows and a reputation for being comparatively secure in the face of global economic reversals, the comfort levelAmerica’s new President has with his Brazilian counterpart — even extending to encouraging them to play a role as a conduit to, for example, the Iranians. Agree or not with their every move in places like Honduras or in the OAS on Cuba, Brazil has also continued to play an important regional role even as it is clear its focus has shifted to the global stage.