In the case of the environment, we are dealing with an element of a collective nature because it is indispensable for the conservation of the human species.  It is a public good whose enjoyment or damage not only affects a person, but also the community in general, and therefore its defense and ownership is of a diffuse nature.

Greater protection of the environment would imply that any person could claim its affectation as a common good, regardless of his or her specific relationship with the affected environment. However, defense mechanisms have not yet achieved a global development that would allow an interaction of this nature between the different systems of judicialization.

The Human Right to the Environment is part of the so-called Third Generation Human Rights. These correspond to global aspects; they contemplate issues of a supranational nature, such as the Right to a healthy and ecologically balanced Environment. In the face of collective violations, collective rights emerge as a guarantee and necessary protection against such aggressions. 

They differ from first and second generation human rights in two main features: 

1) They have a subjective or individual character and at the same time, collective aspect and, 

2) The protected object goes beyond the borders of the State, becoming a global good.

Third Generation Human Rights are characterized by the following:

They start from an approach of international collaboration; They are rights that the international community demands; They are rights on which the survival of the human being, his way of life and that of future generations depend; The holder or active subject of these rights is not unique, because it can be from the State, to the person and the collectivity insofar as it groups the interest of the members, of this diffuse interest. 

The human right to the environment is based on the idea of solidarity and therefore of legitimate interest and not of subjective rights. They are more linked to the obligation to protect them than to the right, since they are collective responsibilities rather than individual prerogatives.

In Mexico, this human right finds its legal basis in Article 4 of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, which provides for the right to the environment as an authentic human right; it recognizes a specific and particular sphere of protection in favor of the individual, characterized by the safeguarding of the surroundings or environment in which he/she lives.

Its objective is to avoid ecological damage as a mediate or immediate consequence of the intervention of man in the administration of natural resources, causing an affectation to diffuse and collective interests whose reparation corresponds to society in general.