"The rule of law does not necessarily require a democracy," Lord Woolf told me. It would be possible for countries such as China and Russia to adhere to the rule of law.

And does Qatar? Woolf could not say. But what he does believe is that former senior judges from democratic countries can be a catalyst for change.

A few months after he retired as Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales in 2005, Woolf was invited to become the first president of a special court set up in Qatar to decide commercial disputes. 

He is very proud of the fact that the Emir gave the post to a prominent Jew. And Malik Dahlan, the Harvard-educated local organiser of the conference, returned the compliment by mentioning Lord Woolf in the same breath as Maimonides (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon). Or rather "Maimonides of al-Andalus", a subtle reminder that the greatest Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages was born in Muslim Cordoba during the so-called golden age of Islamic tolerance — an age, incidentally, that ended when the young Maimonides and his family were forced to flee Muslim invaders. Dahlan also praised Sir William Blair, co-convenor of the conference and now a High Court judge. He was "the Arab world's preferred Blair", added Dahlan, in a pointed reference to the judge's better-known brother Tony.

The Qatar Financial Centre's civil and commercial court is an oasis of common law in a desert of sharia, like the earlier court in Dubai on which it was modelled.

Taking jurisdiction away from the local courts is obviously good for business — international investors will be more willing to invest if they know that their disputes will be decided according to laws with which they are familiar — but it caused some initial resentment among Qatar's judges. Still, they retain their criminal jurisdiction. Fraudsters will be tried and punished according to sharia principles.

Why am I left feeling edgy about the whole trip? Qatar has used its great wealth to buy in a system of justice of which I am proud. But that's only for international businesses. Qataris have to make do with a system of laws based on royal decrees. And the foreign workers who outnumber Qataris as they build the country in the baking heat — what rights do they have in practice?

As I say, it seemed a strange place to hear Lord Phillips, the senior law lord, say that equality before the law is essential and access to justice must be open to all.