in her child, unless the father acknowledged paternity during pregnancy. In the following case, the issue was not statelessness itself, but the Supreme Court’s 2002 dismissal of a discrimination claim: a child born out of wedlock could acquire Japanese nationality at birth if paternity was acknowledged during pregnancy but could not if acknowledged after birth.93 Article 2(1) of the Nationality Law grants Japanese nationality to children born with a legal child-parent relationship with a mother or father of Japanese citizenship, in view of their close ties to Japan. It is desirable that the child’s innate nationality be settled at the time of birth. However, whether the child’s paternity will be acknowledged after birth is not definite at the time the child is born. Therefore, it is with reason that Article 2(1) of the Law does not grant Japanese nationality at birth, when the child’s father acknowledges paternity after birth: this acknowledgment does not provide legal parentage retroactively to the date of the child’s birth. The Committee on the Rights of the Child made the following observations to the second periodic report presented by Japan in 2004, which contrasts with the above. “The Committee is concerned that a child of a Japanese father and foreign mother cannot obtain Japanese citizenship unless the father has recognized that child before its birth, which has, in some cases, resulted in some children being stateless....The Committee recommends that the State party amend its Nationality Act and all other relevant legislation and regulations to ensure conformity with Article 7 of the Convention so that no child born in Japan should become stateless.”94 The amended 1984 Nationality Act created a new provision in Article 3, which states: “One who has acquired the status of a legitimate child by marriage of one’s father and mother and by recognition thereof and has not attained the age of twenty years (excluding one who was once a Japanese national) may, in cases where a father or mother who made recognition was a Japanese national at the time of the birth of his or her child, if such father or mother is a Japanese national at present or was a Japanese national at the time of his or her death, acquire Japanese nationality by making notification to the Minister of Justice.” This provision has been interpreted to enable a child whose Japanese father and foreign mother are not married at the time of birth to 93 Judgment of the Supreme Court (Second Petty Bench November 22, 2002). Concluding Observations from the Committee on the Rights of the Child; Japan, UN Doc.CRC/C/15/Add.231,26 February 2004, paras. 31, 32. 94 37