1.   Such a precedent does not exist and will not be established under the relatively minor privatisation programme that we are discussing today.

2.   But the five permanent members of the Security Council, including the United States, are wary of setting such a precedent.

3.   IMF officials are also concerned about the precedent such a move would create.

4.   Once such a precedent is established, their enterprise would increasingly be at the mercy of the cleverly litigious.

5.   Such a precedent could leave less-affluent members more vulnerable, and become a terrible weapon of political destruction if applied in a partisan way.

6.   Traditionalists reject all talk of papal resignations, fearful that such a precedent would undermine the special nature of papal authority, which Catholics believe comes directly from God.

7.   City authorities are reluctant to let the patriarch be buried there, because such a precedent could signal an acknowledgement of the authority of the Ukraine-based church.

8.   Israel wants to avoid such a precedent and intended only to allow PNC members back into the West Bank and Gaza.

9.   This had concerned the government which feared that such a precedent might result in the taxpayer making a high contribution to the cost of disposal.