126 COLUM. J. RACE & L. [Vol. 11:83 Article 1(3) in its argument that the claim was inadmissible.181 In finding the claim to be admissible (although dismissing it on the merits), the Committee did not take the opportunity to provide a robust explanation of the relationship between Article 1(3) and Article 5(d)(iii), but rather relied once again on General Recommendation Thirty.182 A strong interpretive framework for explaining its application of General Recommendation Thirty might empower the Committee to respond more forcefully to such invocations. The absence of a principled framework for explaining the limited reach of state sovereignty in matters of nationality simultaneously empowers states to continue relying on such claims, and threatens to weaken state engagement with the process of review. Second, the Committee still does not routinely raise matters of nationality, even in obvious cases of discrimination. 183 Indeed in some instances, other UN treaty bodies have been more active on the topic of racial discrimination in nationality laws than the very treaty body vested with core responsibility in matters of racial discrimination. For example, the Committee did not comment on Liberia’s nationality laws in its 2001 review,184 whereas the Committee on the Rights of the Child commented on Liberia’s discriminatory nationality laws in both its 2004 and 2012 Concluding Observations.185 In 2012, for example, it noted with regret that: [D]espite its previous recommendation, the granting of citizenship to children born in the State party remains restricted on the basis of colour or racial origin according to the provisions 181 Pjetri v. Switzerland, Communication 53/2013, Opinion, Comm. on Elimination Racial Discrimination, ¶ 4.2, U.N. Doc. CERD/C/91/D/53/2013 (Jan. 23, 2017). 182 Id. ¶ 6.2. 183 Our analysis reveals that there was no discussion of nationality laws in the reviews of sixty-one countries (being Albania, Argentina, Austria, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Canada, Chad, China, Colombia, Djibouti, Ecuador, Fiji, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea, Guyana, Haiti, Holy See, Hungary, India, Iran, Ireland, Jamaica, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Lesotho, Liberia, Mali, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Philippines, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Seychelles, Slovakia, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Spain, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Uganda, Uruguay, Venezuela, Yugoslavia (Former Republic of), and Zambia). 184 Hoornick, supra note 156, at 27. 185 See Comm. on Rts. Child, Concluding Observations on Liberia, ¶ 32, U.N. Doc. CRC/C/15/Add.236 (July 1, 2004); Comm. on Rts. Child, Concluding Observation on Liberia, ¶ 42, U.N. Doc. CRC/C/LBR/CO/2-4 (Dec. 13, 2012).