At the Bar - Light lunch with John Guy

Mahin Faghfouri takes a light lunch with John Guy at the Palais de Nations, Geneva

UNTIL recently, Mahin Faghfouri was - despite her exotic name - one of the most influential people in international maritime law that no-one had ever heard of. Why? Because she has built a career at UNCTAD, and many people in shipping think UNCTAD an expensive irrelevance.

"Rubbish," says this quiet-spoken Iranian woman, as we sip Swiss Aligote wine and look out across Geneva to the snow-capped peak of Mont Blanc. "UNCTAD was seen as politically aligned to the third world, and it is there to promote trade and development in developing countries. But it has international impact and our work here has led to lots of changes."

The Palais des Nations, where we are about to sample the buffet in the top floor restaurant, was the home of the League of Nations. A beautiful building, in a beautiful setting in the heart of Geneva, it has seen many changes, and today houses 3,000 UN staff, about 400 of whom work for The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

Mahin is head of the legal unit in the division for Services Infrastructure for Development and Trade and Efficiency. At least, I think that's what she said, although it is a long job title for such a quiet and relaxed woman. Before she tells me about the changes she has influenced, we go round the neat buffet, me for cold meat and salad, Mahin for hot rice and spicy fish in a basket.

Is there any spice in being an international legal bureaucrat? "You don't see my name out there," says Mahin. "But we have put out some controversial reports which have been the catalyst that forces industry to change things. In 1990 we made the maritime community sit up by reporting on how the old charter party forms in use gave rise to disputes because of out-of-date language. That led to revisions of Gencon and NYPE, and I know a lot of law firms keep that report as a 'must read' for new entrants. Where else can you find all those interpretation cases documented?"

Where else would you be seated in a sunlit restaurant listening to the tables around you talking in six or seven different languages? And where else would the top graduate of her year from Teheran's law school have ended up? Mahin speaks French, English, Arabic and her native Farsi, and she loves the international feel of Geneva. "But when I won my law scholarship to University College in London, I could only really speak Farsi," she recalls. "My professor was FJJ Cadwallader. I respect him immensely, both personally and professionally, but I used to cry after his lectures. He was Welsh, I was Iranian, and I really wanted to understand what he said. But I couldn't."

One of very few Iranian women sponsored by the government to study abroad under the Shah's regime, Mahin found herself cut off financially by the Iranian revolution. "I didn't want to go back," she says, and you cannot imagine a woman with Mahin's intellectual depth being happy under a veil. "I was able to finish my PhD with UWIST, without having to go to Cardiff. But I never wanted to be a litigator. I wanted to change things. So, when I was offered a temporary post at UNCTAD, I came to Geneva, and here I am today."

Here she is, except when she is jetting off to speak at international conferences. The Swiss sunshine is glinting on the new gold jewellery she is wearing, bought as a souvenir of a recent trip to Oman, where she chaired a seminar session. She has spoken at a number of conferences recently.

"I do most of my work behind the scenes," says Mahin. "I have just finished the Arrest of Ships Convention. Organising that was a massive task, not just the logistics, but getting the right chairmen and guiding the process through. I think it was a huge success, and will certainly lead to changes. The new convention has a lot of advantages over the 1952 one."

And here she is, sipping at her wine, but drinking more of her water, when she is not out cross-country skiing or mountain walking. "That's another reason to live in Geneva," Mahin smiles happily. "In half an hour you can be in the mountains, away from work, and I have only a five-minute commute every day." Mahin has a positive attitude to work and relaxation. "When I work, I work hard, and I have good people with me, and we really want to do things. But when I go away, I go away, and I don't want to know about the office."

We don't want to know about desserts, and there would be a lot less wine drunk in the world if all the lunchers were Mahin. But the Palais de Nations is a place which encourages talking, and we have time for a coffee. There aren't too many restaurants with such history below and around them, and such a view in front of them. In front of Mahin is a conference on electronic commerce. Experts are coming to Geneva to work on the legal aspects of electronic commerce and Mahin is co-co-ordinating that. No doubt the outcome will influence shipping and the way trade is done. And, equally, it will influence it without most people being aware of where the ideas came from, and who put into motion the machinery needed to generate those ideas. But we'll know, and Mahin knows, and she doesn't need any more recognition than that.