Title: RE: wrt the term "meta-policy" Colleagues - I observe that the model upon which the proposal made by Entrust to XACML is based contains a policy authority. This authority makes policy statements concerning the circumstances under which entities may perform actions on resources. PDPs can trust every statement made by the authority. The authority makes policy statements at the request of policy administrators, and part of its function must be to ensure that the policy administrator has authority over the resource to which the statement applies. It is still possible for the policy authority to receive conflicting requests for policy statements. But, it has an opportunity to identify such conflicts and ensure that every statement it makes is correct and consistent with all others. It can even replace previously-issued statements in order to achieve this. This approach allows conflict resolution to take place at the time the policies are issued, rather than at the time they are used - surely a simpler problem to solve? I don't know the extent to which this characteristic solves, or merely obscures, the issue of conflicting policies. Interested in others' perspectives. Best regards. Tim.