The political process in Northern Ireland would be moving faster towards a solution if more women were involved in it, according to Ms Cheryl Carolus, South African High Commissioner in London.
She was speaking to the first world women lawyers' conference of the International Bar Association yesterday, attended by 900 delegates from 90 countries.
Ms Carolus became a member of the ANC's national executive in 1991 and was one of two women in the ANC delegation to the "talks about talks" that followed Mr Nelson Mandela's release from prison.
"When the formal negotiating process began the women organised across the political parties to ensure that women were represented," she told delegates.
"The result was that at least 50 per cent of the negotiating teams had to be women. The outcome of those negotiations would not have been possible if they did not have that 50 per cent.
"I look at countries like Northern Ireland, and I can't believe they are not moving faster towards a solution.
"We achieved a consensus. If half of our negotiators were not women, we would have dealt with the conflict differently. The talks would have suffered from what I call `testosterone poisoning'. Women are used to dealing with conflicts, in the family, in the community. When they find an obstacle, they find a way to overcome it."
She said at least half the heads of South Africa's diplomatic missions were women, and women were well represented in the South African parliament.
Prof Judith Resnik from Yale University told the conference that the recent judgment at the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, delivered by Judge Florence Mumba from Zambia, made sexual slavery a war crime for the first time.
The Human Rights Act, which brought the European Convention on Human Rights into English law last October, had introduced a right of protection of family life, barrister Ms Margaret McCabe said.
This would have implications, not only for family law, but for all law, she said. "Family life is not defined in the convention, but it will go beyond the family based on marriage," she said.
"It will touch immigration law, housing, employment law." The European Convention on Human Rights is shortly to be incorporated into Irish law. The form of incorporation is expected to follow that adopted by the UK's legal systems.