The ad-hoc international criminal court in The Hague, set up to try those accused of human rights violations in the former Yugoslavia, has been in existence for 10 years. Those who directed the outrages have yet to be brought before it.

However, that is now about to change with the indictment of those in charge during the commission of most of the atrocities. When - and if - Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic are brought before the tribunal they might face an Irish judge, Maureen Harding Clark, who has just been elected by the United Nations to join the panel of part-time judges there.

It will be up to the president of the tribunal to allocate cases, which are heard by a panel of three judges. She is waiting to be called to hear her first case.

It is rumoured that a number of both serving and retired members of the judiciary sought the nomination, along with several senior counsel, but the Attorney General, Michael McDowell, asked Ms Clark if she would accept the nomination, and she did. She was elected to the panel seventh out of the 27.

Asked to describe the woman who represents Ireland on this tribunal, whose name is little known outside legal circles, the word most often used by fellow-lawyers is tough-minded.

Petite, with a colonial accent born of a childhood spent in Malaya, her manner and appearance are not those usually associated with the leaders of the criminal bar. "Don't be misled by the gentle appearance," said a colleague. "She wasn't taking any prisoners when she was prosecuting. If she was prosecuting, you knew you were prosecuted. She was seen as an opponent to be feared."

"She certainly stands her ground," said another lawyer. "She would not be cowed by what could be a difficult court situation. She is not easily daunted by challenges from the bench or anywhere else. She's no push-over, but she's not stubborn or intransigent either."

She travelled the hard route to her current prominence, described by the Government when presenting her nomination as "Ireland's leading woman criminal lawyer". She was called to the Bar in 1975, when there were only about 20 women at the Bar. Fewer still practised in criminal law, which was seen as not a suitable area for women.

"Mary Robinson was a role model," Ms Clark told The Irish Times. "She had young children and she was working as a barrister, and she lectured me in Trinity. She said, `If you want to be a real barrister you have to do what the men do. You have to go on circuit.' So I did."

She joined the south-eastern circuit, the only woman on circuit at the time. A colleague who worked with her there said: "She began the trend that women weren't pigeon-holed into areas like family law.

"She was not doing it because going into the professions was a nice thing to do, she was trying to make a living and support her children."

She had two young children at the time, and she was separated. She was on circuit for about 15 years. Her children were in boarding school from quite a young age. "It's an awful life," said the colleague. "You can't engage in anything else socially. You're committed to travelling up and down every week, staying in hotels."

But she said: "I learned my trade on the south-eastern circuit." She still speaks warmly of the solicitors she worked with there.

However, she would have stood out in the male, clubby, boozy environment of the circuit bar. She tells a story of being gently set up by colleagues during a pre-trial dinner in a hotel in Co Tipperary.

"The menu was all roast turkey and ham and over-done beef. I said I wanted some cheese, and the waitress asked what kind. Someone told me to ask for the Stilton, and I said `Stilton and celery', and she asked `braised celery?'

"I thought there was a problem with the celery, and I said `I'll just have it with an apple'. One of the other barristers said, `Maureen, you're in Tipperary now. It's red mousetrap or white mousetrap.' So I said, `I'll have the turkey and ham.' "

She became State prosecutor for Tipperary in 1985, a position she held until she became a senior counsel in 1991, when she continued to prosecute for the State, but now in the Central Criminal Court in Dublin. Among the trials she prosecuted were the first male rape trial and the first marital rape trial. She was also the lead counsel in the first money-laundering trial in the State.

She was born in Scotland to a Scottish Presbyterian father and an Irish Catholic mother. The family moved to Malaya when she was two, where her father worked as an engineer. She went to a school run by French nuns, where she and her sister were the only Europeans. The language of the school was English, but the nuns spoke to each other in French, and she also learned Malay. This familiarity with the Far East undoubtedly contributed to her winning 130 out of the possible 160 votes for the ad litem judge at the UN Assembly.

The family moved to Ireland when she was 12, and she went to the University of Lyons for a year after her secondary education, before returning to Ireland to study law in UCD.

In UCD she met an American medical student and they got married in her second year. On graduation she went with him to the United States, where she had two children. But the marriage did not last, and she came back to Dublin with two children under the age of three. Although the separation was amicable, being a single mother in Dublin in the early 1970s was "ghastly".

"I had great help though," she said. "My family were marvellous. They took the children for two weeks every summer while I was doing my Bar exams. The woman who ran the Montessori school they went to, Natalie Newman, would take them in early and keep them late.

"My friends used to call them drip-dry kids - easy care. They were great fun. We grew up together. They were non-complaining, nice kids. They're now good citizens." Her daughter, Kate, is a registrar in Tallaght Hospital and her son John is a statistician.

As well as enjoying the company of her children, she likes outdoor pursuits such as fishing, bird-watching and gardening. She has recently bought a house in west Cork, and revels in its stepped garden.

Like most of the women at the Bar she is not clubbable, but does socialise with friends. "She's pretty good at the stories," said one friend. She is known not to suffer fools gladly, and she can be forthright about those who qualify in this regard. But she is also generous with her praise for those she likes and respects, and paused several times during an interview with The Irish Times to emphasise the help she received from various people when she needed it.

"When I joined the Bar I was told, `All forms of life are here, including those who crawled out from under stones'," she told The Irish Times. "I've met a few slimy creatures. But some incredibly decent people as well."