MR Mohamed Sahnoun, the Algerian diplomat chosen to tackle the spreading conflict in Africa's Great Lakes region, has shown in the past he is willing to put principle before this career.
Mr Sahnoun was named in New York on Wednesday and will be the first joint special representative of the UN and the Organisation of African Unity (OAU).
A slight man with a good sense of hum our, Mr Sahnoun showed his steel in 1992 when he stood up to former UN secretary general, Dr Boutros Boutros Ghali, resigning as special representative in Somalia.
"He is recognised by almost everybody as a very skilled diplomat and negotiator," a senior official at OAU headquarters in Ethiopia said.
Mr Sahnoun lasted exactly six months in Somalia. He felt obliged to resign after Dr Boutros Ghali rebuked him for saying the UN was slow in reacting to famine in the Horn of Africa country.
Mr Sahnoun's independent and anti bureaucratic style annoyed UN functionaries. It may have been coincidental but after his abrupt departure Somalia's slide into anarchy accelerated. Hugely costly and misguided military operations by the US and the UN led to bloodshed and ended in ignominious retreat in 1995.
Mr Sahnoun watched from the sidelines and published a memoir to highlight policy failures and defend his record.
His latest challenge is even tougher.
The poison in relations between the Tutsi and Hutu tribes lies at the heart of a spreading conflict.
There is civil war in eastern Zaire, ethnic war in Burundi and collective trauma in Rwanda after the 1994 genocide of up to 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
These conflicts have spawned millions of refugees and displaced people, a mini arms race and deep hostilities between regional leaders.
Spelling out Mr Sahnoun's super human mandate, the new UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, said he would promote peace, especially in eastern Zaire and Burundi, prepare an international conference on the entire region, direct UN political activities and co ordinate its aid.
Mr Sahnoun seemed to have driven a hard bargain to get unprecedented back up.
Mr Annan said the envoy would need an aircraft and communications at his Nairobi base and establish sub offices in the capitals of Burundi, Rwanda and Zaire.
Mr Sahnoun's negotiating skills will first have to be deployed working out relations with the plethora of special envoys already in the Great Lakes countries, sent by the UN, the OAU, the EU, the US, Belgium, South Africa and Kenya.
Their combined efforts have failed to prevent the crisis escalating steadily. All out war in Zaire is the next threat.
Mr Sahnoun will be the first envoy to report to two very different organisations. The UN has a vast and big spending bureaucracy while the OAU is small and hard up.
"The rationale is to enhance cooperation between the two organisations and to forge a new partnership," an OAU official said.
The two bodies fell out publicly late last year when the OAU accused the UN of ignoring Africa when key decisions were taken after the rebellion in eastern Zaire.
Most diplomats and aid agency sources in Nairobi predicted that Mr Sahnoun would report principally to Mr Annan.
"I imagine he'll just keep the OAU informed," one senior aid worker said.