The paper aims to present a critical analysis of the phenomenon and notion of exceptionalism in bioethics. The authors demonstrate that exceptionalism pertains to phenomena that are not (yet) entirely familiar to us and could potentially bear risks regarding their regulation. After an overview of the state of the art, we briefly describe the origins and evolution of the concept, compared to exception and exclusion. In the second step, they look at the overall development debates on genetic exceptionalism, compared to other bioethical debates on exceptionalism, before presenting a detailed analysis of a specific case of early regulation of genetic screening. In the last part, the authors explain the historical background behind the connection between exceptionalism and exclusion in these debates. Their main conclusion is that while the initial stage of the discussion is shaped by the concept of exceptionalism and awareness of risks of exclusion, the later development centers around exceptions that are needed in detailed regulatory procedures.

Indexed constraints are often used in constraint-based phonological frameworks to account for exceptions to generalizations. A point of contention in the literature on constraint indexation revolves around indexed markedness constraints. While some researchers argue that only faithfulness constraints should be indexed, others argue that markedness constraints should be eligible for indexation as well. This article presents data from Japanese for which a complete synchronic analysis requires indexed markedness constraints but argues that such constraints are only necessary in cases where a phonological repair applies across a morpheme boundary. We then demonstrate that algorithms for learning grammars with indexed constraints can be augmented with a bias towards faithfulness indexation and discuss the advantages of incorporating such a bias, as well as its implications for the debate over the permissibility of indexed markedness constraints.

In the summer of 2017, the International Law Commission adopted a draft article on exceptions to immunity. The Draft Article adopted provides that immunity ratione materiae does not apply with respect to certain international crimes, namely crimes against humanity, the crime of genocide, war crimes, the crime of apartheid, torture, and enforced disappearances. These exceptions do not apply to immunity ratione personae. The Draft Article was adopted after a vote and was severely criticized by some members of the Commission. It has also received mixed reaction from states, with some supporting its content while others have opposed it. In the aftermath of the adoption of the Draft Article, there has also been academic commentary, some of which has been critical. The (main) criticism levelled against the Draft Article is that it does not represent existing law and has no basis in the practice of states. This article seeks to evaluate the criticism by considering whether there is any state practice in support of the Draft Article proposed by the Commission.

Temporary laws or measures arise in different circumstances to deal with a wide array of perceived problems or concerns. This essay deals with one specific kind of temporary measures, which are provided for in international human rights treaties: ‘preferential treatments’ or ‘positive measures’, as they are called. The essay examines whether these measures undermine the predictability and stability of the norm of equality on which behalf they are said to have been adopted. The essay argues that these measures will be inconsistent with and destablise equality only if equality is understood narrowly as a principle that only requires sameness of treatment rather than the more substantive notion of equality (equality of opportunity) that this essay endorses and advances.

Anti-discrimination complaints by religious employees have constructed seemingly intractable conflicts. The United Kingdom courts have resolved these disputes by diluting individual religious liberty, particularly when determining questions of disadvantage and proportionality under indirect discrimination. This article explores an alternative UK anti-discrimination claim route for religious employees, namely an employer duty of reasonable accommodation. A comparative analysis outlines the corresponding Canadian duty. This model is applied to UK employment cases featuring indirect religious discrimination, specifically those claims which formed the recent applications in Eweida and Others v UK. It is suggested that adoption of the Canadian model be considered: its nuanced approach to proportionality is particularly instructive. Whilst such a UK duty could prove controversial, it would cohere with both normative theory in law and religion and conceptual understanding of anti-discrimination law. Moreover, reasonable accommodation's individualised focus should be acclaimed; it need not compromise collective notions of religious liberty.

Collaborative design conflicts are an important type of process “exception,” that is, a real-life contingency such as a process change, execution error, or missed opportunity that leads to suboptimal performance of a collaborative process. This paper presents an integrated computational approach to collaborative process exception handling that avoids important weaknesses in current conflict management methods through the synergistic integration of conflict, workflow, and rationale technology. The approach is based upon an inclusive dependency language plus coordination services for dependency capture, process enactment, and exception handling. An initial implementation of this method called “iDCSS” is presented and challenges for future evolution of this technology are identified.

The recent judgement on the merits in the Oil Platforms case has brought a long-standing dispute before the International Court of Justice to a close. This article critically analyzes some of the most interesting topics raised in this judgement, not least the fact that it was harshly criticized by a very high number of judges in their individual opinions. The issues discussed – such as the role of self-defence law within the confines of an ‘FCN treaty’ or the notion of ‘freedom of commerce’ – merely point to higher-level problems of a theoretical nature which cause our confusion as to substantive law.

The paper proposes a new knowledge representation language, called DLP<, which extends disjunctive logic programming (with strong negation) by inheritance. The addition of inheritance enhances the knowledge modeling features of the language providing a natural representation of default reasoning with exceptions. A declarative model-theoretic semantics of DLP< is provided, which is shown to generalize the Answer Set Semantics of disjunctive logic programs. The knowledge modeling features of the language are illustrated by encoding classical nonmonotonic problems in DLP<. The complexity of DLP< is analyzed, proving that inheritance does not cause any computational overhead, as reasoning in DLP< has exactly the same complexity as reasoning in disjunctive logic programming. This is confirmed by the existence of an efficient translation from DLP< to plain disjunctive logic programming. Using this translation, an advanced KR system supporting the DLP< language has been implemented on top of the DLV system and has subsequently been integrated into DLV.