Today marks the 75th anniversary of the signing of the United Nations Charter, which established the biggest and longest-lived experiment in global political cooperation in modern history. Brazil’s role in the organization has changed a lot over the years — from peripheral actor to aspiring power and now an almost-pariah status. It is safe to say that the country’s relationship with the UN has never been colder, not even during the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil between 1964 and 1985.
If the UN was seen as a forum to legitimize Brazil’s position on the international scene, the order now — with Brazilian...