Jonathan Hafetz
Associate Professor of Law
Professor Jonathan Hafetz focuses his research on national security, human rights, immigration, international criminal law, and constitutional law. He joined Seton Hall Law School as an Associate Professor in 2010.
Professor Hafetz is the author of Habeas Corpus after 9/11: Confronting America’s New Global Detention System (NYU Press 2011), which received the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award for Media and the Arts, Honorable Mention, and the American Society of Legal Writers, Scribes Silver Medal Award. He is the co-editor (with Mark Denbeaux) of The Guantanamo Lawyers: Inside a Prison Outside the Law (NYU Press 2009). Professor Hafetz’s scholarship has appeared in numerous publications, including the Yale Law Journal, Columbia Law Review Sidebar, Fordham International Law Journal, American University International Law Review, and Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, and has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Prior to joining Seton Hall, Professor Hafetz was a senior attorney at the ACLU’s National Security Project, a litigation director at NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice, and a John J. Gibbons Fellow in Public Interest and Constitutional Law at Gibbons, P.C. Professor Hafetz has served as counsel in major national security detention cases, including Al-Marri v. Spagone, which involved the military detention of a legal U.S. resident, and Munaf v. Geren, which involved the detention of two American citizens in Iraq. He was a member of the legal teams in Boumediene v. Bush and Rasul v. Rumsfeld in which the Supreme Court recognized the right of Guantánamo detainees to habeas corpus. Other notable cases include Jawad v. Obama (winning the release of a Guantanamo detainee), Salahi v. Obama (habeas corpus challenge on behalf of a Guantanamo detainee), and Meshal v. Higgenbotham (federal civil rights suit challenging the secret rendition of an American citizen in East Africa). Professor Hafetz also has authored or co-authored more than twenty amicus curiae briefs for the U.S. Supreme Court and federal courts of appeals on a range of constitutional and legal issues.
Professor Hafetz lectures widely on civil liberties and human rights. He has testified before Congress on habeas corpus. Professor Hafetz frequently provides expert legal commentary for major media outlets and news programs. He blogs regularly at Balkinization and Huffington Post. In 2010, Professor Hafetz was appointed to serve on the New York City Bar Task Force on National Security and the Rule of Law.
Professor Hafetz earned his J.D. from the Yale Law School. He holds an M. Phil in Modern History from Oxford University and a B.A. from Amherst College. He was the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship from the U.S. Government for study in Mexico. Following law school, Professor Hafetz served as a law clerk to Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and Judge Sandra L. Lynch of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
PUBLICATIONS
LAW REVIEW ARTICLES
Reconceptualizing Federal Courts in an Age of Terrorism, St. Louis L. Rev. (forthcoming 2012)
Military Detention in the 'War on Terorrism': Normalizing the Exceptional after 9/11, 112 Colum. L. Rev. Sidebar 31 (2012)
Calling the Government to Account: Habeas Corpus after Boumediene, 57 Wayne L. Rev. 91 (2012)
Redefining State Power and Individual Rights in the War on Terrorism, 46 Valparaiso Univ. L. Rev. 843 (2012)
Vindicating the Rule of Law: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 31 Fletcher F. World Aff. 25 (2007)
Constitutional Implications of the War on Terror: "Judicial Review and the Regulation of Custodial Interrogations", 61 N.Y.U. Annual Survey of American Law 443 (2006)
Habeas Corpus, Judicial Review, and Limits on Secrecy in Detentions at Guantánamo, 5 Cardozo Law, Public Pol'y & Ethics J. 127 (2006)
The Supreme Court's ‘Enemy Combatant’ Decisions: Recognizing the Rights of Non-Citizens and the Rule of Law, 14 Temple Pol. & Civ. Rights L. Rev. 409 (2005)
The First Amendment and the Right of Access to Deportation Proceedings, 40 California Western L. Rev. 265 (2004)
Pretrial Detention, Human Rights, and Judicial Reform in Latin America, 26 Fordham Int'l L. J. 1754 (2003)
Homeless Legal Advocacy: New Challenges and Directions for the Future, 30 Fordham Urban L. J. 1215 (2003)
"A Man's Home is His Castle": Reflections on the Home, Family, and Privacy During the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, 8 William and Mary J. of Women and the Law 175 (2002)
Fostering Protection of the Marine Environment and Economic Development: Article 121(3) of the Third Law of the Sea Convention, 15 Am. Univ. Int'l L. Rev. 583 (2000)
The Untold Story of NonCriminal Habeas Corpus and the 1996 Immigration Acts, 107 Yale L. J. 2509 (1998) (cited by U.S. Supreme Court, INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289 , 2001)
The Rule of Egregiousness: INS v. Lopez-Medoza Reconsidered, 19 Whittier L. Rev. 843 (1998)
OTHER JOURNAL ARTICLES
Immigration and National Security Law: Converging Approaches to State Power, Individual Rights, and Judicial Review, 46 Revista Juridica U.P.R. (forthcoming 2012)
BOOKS AND BOOK CHAPTERS
Habeas Corpus after 9/11: Confronting America's New Global Detention System, NYU Press (2011)
The Guantánamo Lawyers: Inside a Prison, Outside the Law, NYU Press (2009) (co-edited with Mark Denbeaux)