Iraq war legality ruling [US DC] News
Iraq war legality ruling [US DC]

New Jersey Peace Action, et al. v. Barack Obama, US District Court for the District of New Jersey, May 19, 2009 [on the basis of a lack of standing, dismissing a lawsuit brought by the Constitutional Litigation Clinic at the Rutgers School of Law alleging that former president George W. Bush violated Congress's constitutional power to declare war by initiating a preemptive war against the nation of Iraq]. Read the full text of the opinion [PDF]. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Eighteenth Amendment came into effect

On January 16, 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution came into effect as scheduled one year after ratification, marking the beginning of Prohibition. Learn more about Temperance and Prohibition from Professor K. Austin Kerr of the Ohio State University Department of History.

English Parliament bans Roman Catholicism

On January 16, 1581, the English Parliament banned Roman Catholicism throughout the country during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. From that time on, Catholicism declined in England until the Catholic Emancipation of the late 18th century.

Read the history of the Roman Catholic Church in England.