Professor Baher Azmy directs a Civil Rights and Constitutional Litigation Clinic, and teaches constitutional law. Professor Azmy’s litigation work focuses on national security and human rights cases emerging from the "war on terror," including those raising issues relating to the lawfulness of extraordinary rendition, torture and indefinite executive detention; he is also involved in cases protecting the rights of immigrants and attempting to increase openness in government. He has authored numerous legal briefs in the Courts of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court on various human rights and international law issues. For his teaching, Seton Hall Law students voted him Professor of the Year in 2007.

In July 2004, he took on the representation of Murat Kurnaz, a German resident of Turkish descent imprisoned in Guantánamo Bay by the U.S. military as a so-called "enemy combatant" until his release in August 2006. Professor Azmy visited Guantanamo numerous times, and has participated extensively in varied briefing that has occurred in the courts, including in the Supreme Court in Boumediene v. Bush, in the consolidated Guantanamo habeas cases. Mr. Kurnaz detailed his ordeal in Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man In Guantánamo. Professor Azmy has discussed the issues surrounding the Guantanamo cases in a variety of national and international academic, professional and human rights forums, and has testified before Congress. His work on this case has been featured in a number of prominent media, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, CBS’ 60 Minutes, The Boston Globe, Miami Herald, Village Voice, Mother Jones and New York Magazine.

Some of his other litigation work includes:

• Amicus brief in U.S. Supreme Court in Munaf v. Geren on behalf of human rights and religious organizations arguing proposed transfer of U.S. citizens to risk of torture in Iraqi custody is cognizable in habeas corpus and violates the Convention Against Torture and Fifth Amendment.

• Amicus brief in U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of 300+ detainees highlighting harsh interrogation methods and conditions of confinement in Guantanamo. Amicus brief in 2nd Circuit in Arar v. Ashcroft, on behalf of twenty prominent constitutional law scholars arguing that constitutional prohibition on torture is absolute and not subject to any national security exception.

• Amicus brief in 3rd Circuit on behalf of international human rights scholars challenging government's use of "diplomatic assurances" to avoid judicial review of proposed transfers to countries where torture is likely.

• Major lawsuit brought on behalf of individuals challenging legality of Department Homeland Security's nationwide practice of engaging in warrantless, pre-dawn raids of immigrant households.

• Federal court challenge to Newark Police Department's intimidation and false arrest of local newspaper publisher.

• Amicus brief in D.C. Circuit on behalf of experts in laws of war in support of lawsuit against private military contractors brought by victims of torture in Abu Ghraib prison.

• Freedom of Information Act lawsuits to obtain DHS records regarding raids practices and to obtain DoD's records regarding Guantanamo.  

• Lawsuits against UN officials and other employers seeking civil damages for acts of human trafficking and involuntary servitude. 

Prior to joining Seton Hall in 1999, Professor Azmy was in private practice in New York and clerked for then-Chief Judge Dolores K. Sloviter of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. He is a magna cum laude graduate of NYU School of Law where he was a Root-Tilden-Snow Public Interest Scholar, and the University of Pennsylvania.