“Torture and the Law” will be the subject to the next Legal Studies Brown Bag Lunch program at the University of Delaware.

Kai Draper, chairperson of UD’s Department of Philosophy, will discuss the topic at 12:30 p.m., Wednesday, April 5, in Room 253 of Pearson Hall.

During the Bush administration, the War Crimes Act was amended under the Military Commission Act in an attempt to ensure that CIA personnel who took part in waterboarding and other harsh interrogration techniques would not be prosecuted for having done so. President Obama did not encourage Congress to repeal those amendments, nor did he propose any other legislation to strengthen criminal laws against torture.

In his talk, Draper will argue that the War Crimes Act and the Torture Act should be amended so that waterboarding and other forms of interrogrational torture are clearly and unambiguously criminal.

The final program is the series will be “The Problem of Hate Speech” with Jenny Lambe, associate professor of communication, at 1:30 p.m., Wednesday, May 3, in Room 231 Pearson Hall.