The Right to Identity in the Region: Advances Toward a Universal Registry.

• Author: de la Torre, Felix Ortega
• Position: Essay

The right to identity is essential to the full legal recognition and protection of the individual existence of all persons. To guarantee this right, vital acts of registration are fundamental, in particular that of birth. In other words, the right to identity is the right to exist before the law.

The importance of this right has been manifested in several occasions on the international stage. In 1989 the United Nations Convention oil the Rights of the Child was adopted, becoming the first recognition of the right of identity as an independent right: States Parties undertake to respect the right of the child to preserve his or her identity, including nationality, name, and family relations as recognized by law without unlawful interference . (Article 8) However, several of its elements had been recognized in different international texts, such as the right of every person to be a person before the law and to have a nationality in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. or in the Inter-American Convention of Human Rights of 1969 that recognizes the right of every person to a given name and to the sun-tames of both parents or either one of them.

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Moreover, now that countries and institutions are implementing the Millennium Development Goals, the right to identity takes priority since it is a preexisting condition necessary to access the rights and services that, allow citizens to escape the fate of exclusion and poverty. In guaranteeing this fundamental right we further the attainment of the Millennium goals.

The lack of a formal identity is an impediment for a person to access the economic, social, and political life in their country; it inhibits acquiring a full citizenship through which civil, political, social, and cultural rights can be exercised.

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According to UNICEF, more than 50 million children in the world are not registered at birth. Although the problem persists, in Latin America and the Caribbean, there are reasons for optimism. In the last six years, unregistered births have decreased from eighteen percent to ten percent. The collaboration of different international agencies, such as the OAS and UNICEF, along with the engagement of donor countries, has permitted millions of children, young adults, and adults to be recognized as persons before the law and exercise citizenship in an integrated manner.

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Proof of the commitment made by the countries in the...