ASL+ is a formalism for specification and programming in-the-large, based on an arbitrary institution. It has rules for proving the satisfaction and refinement of specifications, which can be seen as a type theory with subtyping, including contravariant refinement for II-abstracted specifications and a notion of stratified equality for higher-order objects. We describe the syntax of the language and a partial equivalence relation semantics. This style of semantics is familiar from subtyping calculi, but a novelty here is the use of a hierarchy of typed domains instead of a single untyped domain. We introduce the formal system for proving satisfaction and refinement and describe how it is linked to proof systems of the underlying programming and specification languages.