Léo RamosCelso Lafer, professor emeritus at the International Relations Institute of the University of São Paulo (USP), was reappointed president of FAPESP by São Paulo governor Geraldo Alckmin. The appointment was published in the Diário Oficial do Estado de São Paulo (the official gazette of the state of São Paulo) on July 30, 2013. Lafer has been president of the Foundation since 2007. “I appreciate the confidence of Governor Alckmin and the support of the Board of Trustees, members of the Executive Board and FAPESP staff in general for the opportunity to continue serving an institution so relevant to research in the state of São Paulo and Brazil,” Lafer said. In the past, he has held the positions of Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Development, Industry and Trade. From 1995 to 1998 he was an ambassador, leading Brazil’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations and to the World Trade Organization in Geneva. At the WTO, he was president of the Dispute Settlement Body (1996) and the General Council (1997). Until his retirement in 2011, Lafer was a full professor in the philosophy and general theory of law department at the USP School of Law, where he studied (1960–1964) and where he began teaching international law and the philosophy of law in 1971. He obtained his master’s degree (1967) and his PhD (1970) in political science from Cornell University, his thesis to obtain tenure was in public international law at the USP School of law in 1977, and he became a full professor of the philosophy of law in 1988. He is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and the Brazilian Academy of Letters.
