- 4Constricted by the hermeneutic hermetism of its previous judgment on preliminary objections in this case, the Court eluded the necessary development of case law to be consequent with its advanced evolutionary interpretation of the American Convention. This evolutionary interpretation is applicable, I believe, in relation to the provisions of the American Convention of both a substantive and procedural nature.4 II. A lost opportunity to develop case law 1. The relevance of the right to identity a) The meaning and scope of the right to identity 13. Given the circumstances of this case, I do not see how it is possible to avoid the question of the right to identity of the two sisters who are still disappeared, Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz. It is an issue on which the Court should have developed case law, because, in my opinion, there is no way in which the right to identity can be disassociated from the legal personality of the individual as a subject of domestic and international law. Therefore, the Court should have examined jointly the alleged violations in this case to the right to a name (Article 18 of the American Convention) and the rights of the family (Article 17 of the Convention). Respect for the right to identity enables the individual to defend his rights and, consequently, also has an impact on his legal and procedural capacity in both domestic and international law. 14. The right to identity presumes the right to know personal and family information, and to have access to this, to satisfy an existential need and safeguard individual rights. This right also has an important cultural (in addition to social, family, psychological and spiritual) content, and is essential for relationships between each individual and the rest of society, and even for his understanding of the outside world, and his place in it. 15. Without a specific identify, one is not a person. The individual is constituted as a being that includes his supreme purpose within himself, and realizes this throughout his life, under his own responsibility. In this optic, safeguarding his right to an identity becomes essential. The legal personality is expressed as a legal category in the sphere of law, as the unitary expression of the aptitude of a human being to be a holder of rights and obligations at the level of regulated human relations and behavior.5 16. The right to identity expands the protection of the human being; it exceeds the category of subjective rights rooted in the sphere of law; it also supports the legal personality as a category in itself in the conceptual sphere of law. The identity expresses what is most personal in each human being, extending to his relationships 4 Cf. A.A. Cançado Trindade, "The Interpretation of the International Law of Human Rights by the Two Regional Human Rights Courts, in Contemporary International Law Issues: Conflicts and Convergence (Proceedings of the III Joint Conference ASIL/Asser Instituut, The Hague, July 1995), The Hague, Asser Instituut, 1996, pp. 157-162 and 166-167; A.A. Cançado Trindade, "Le développement du Droit international des droits de l'homme à travers l'activité et la jurisprudence des Cours Européenne et Interaméricaine des Droits de l'Homme" (Discours du Président de la Cour Interaméricaine des Droits de l'Homme), in CourEDH, Cour Européenne des Droits de l'Homme - Rapport annuel 2003, Strasbourg, CourEDH, 2004, pp. 41-50; A.A. Cançado Trindade, "La Interpretación de Tratados en el Derecho Internacional y la Especificidad de los Tratados de Derechos Humanos, in Estudios de Derecho Internacional en Homenaje al Prof. E.J. Rey Caro (ed. Z. Drnas de Clément), vol. I, Córdoba/Argentina, Ed. Drnas/Lerner, 2003, pp. 747-776. 5 Cf., in this regard, e.g., L. Recaséns Siches, Introducción al Estudio del Derecho, 12a. ed., Mexico, Ed. Porrúa, 1997, pp. 150-151, 153, 156 and 159.