On March 31, 2005, the United Nations issued another response to the vast crisis in the Darfur region of far western Sudan, referring various conspicuous violations of international law to the International Criminal Court. Though there have been five previous UN Security Council resolutions bearing on Darfur, the response contained within Resolution 1593 has gained far and away the most public notice because it seemed, at first glance, to have teeth. Major human rights organizations welcomed the possibility that perpetrators of the mass killings and displacement plaguing the Sudanese region since February 2003 could face trial and eventual punishment. Germany and other Western governments were gratified that the United States, long hostile to the Court, had stopped its obstruction of such an international justice effort. Given the extremely limited relevance of Resolution 1593 to the task of ending the destruction and human suffering in Darfur, however, the initial sighs of relief at the resolution's passage are grimly ironic.

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