Vice-Chairman of the Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI). He is a retired career diplomat and licensed lawyer/consultant at Levy & Salomão Advogados. He served in the Permanent Delegation of Brazil in Geneva as Secretary during the Tokyo Round (1974-1977), as Counselor in the first years of the Uruguay Round (1986-1988), and as Deputy Permanent Representative to GATT (1991-1994).

In his capacity as Undersecretary General for Integration, Economic and Foreign Trade Affairs (1998-2002), he was responsible for all bilateral, plurilateral, bi-regional and multilateral trade negotiations in Brazil and Mercosur. Appointed in 2002 as Permanent Representative to the European Communities, he served in Brussels for four years before serving as Consul General in New York (2005-2008) and Los Angeles (2008-2012).

Between 2014 and 2016 he was also Under Secretary General for Policy II (Asia and the Pacific) and, as such, Sherpa of BRICS and focal point of IBSA. Professor of International Economic Organizations at the Rio Branco Institute between 2013 and 2016, he chaired the examining board of the IRBr High Studies Course from 2016 to 2019. Ambassador Graça Lima served on four WTO panels, three of which as President, and was elected in August as an arbitrator of the WTO Interim Appeal Mechanism.