If you are a bystander and witness a crime, should intervention to prevent that crime be a legal obligation? Or is moral responsibility enough?
Amos N. Guiora addresses these profound questions and the bystander-victim relationship from a deeply personal and legal perspective, focusing on the Holocaust and then exploring cases in contemporary society. He shares the experiences of his parents and grandparents during the Holocaust and examines sexual assault cases at Vanderbilt and Stanford and other crimes where bystanders chose not to intervene. Guiora recommends that we must make the obligation to intervene the law, and thus non-intervention a crime.
Amos N. Guiora is Professor of Law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law, the University of Utah and Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) in the Israel Defense Forces. He is actively involved in bystander legislation efforts in Utah and in other states around the country.
Guiora has an A.B. in history from Kenyon College, a J.D. from Case Western Reserve University School of Law, and a Ph.D from Leiden University.
Guiora has published extensively both in the United States and Europe on issues related to national security, limits of interrogation, religion and terrorism, the limits of power, multiculturalism and human rights. He is the author of several books, including Freedom from Religion: Rights and National Security (2009), Tolerating Intolerance: The Price of Protecting Extremism (2014), The Crime of Complicity: The Bystander in the Holocaust, and most recently Earl Warren, Ernesto Miranda and Terrorism (2018).
