Joshua Kurlantzick reviews "If You Leave Us Here We Will Die:" How Genocide Was Stopped in East Timor, by Geoffrey Robinson.

The United Nations has frequently cited East Timor as a model nation-building project. But new unrest in the tiny Asian state indicates that the international community has again failed to show the stamina to guide a nation toward genuine stability.

East Timor had been the feel-good story of UN nation-building. But success was declared far too early and international forces are once again necessary to restore stability in the world's newest state.

This critical report from the East-West Center looks at the operation of the UN tribunal in East Timor that sought to achieve accountability for the violence associated with the 1999 vote for independence. The report argues that the East Timor tribunal represents a virtual textbook case of how not to create, manage, and administer a "hybrid" justice process. Problems included a lack of resources, an unclear mandate, inadequate recruitment, ineffective management by a peacekeeping mission that had other priorities, and a lack of political will both at UN headquarters and at the mission level. The report argues that it is particularly important to assess the failings for the East Timor trials as the UN risks repeating some of the same mistakes in Cambodia.