The trial to protect constitutional rights as an environmental law defense tool on Mexico’s legal system

Abstract

Today, we can observe that the more common legal tools, like the environmental impact assessment or the ecologic responsibility process, are often insufficient for guarantying the human right to develop on a contamination free environment. For this reason, the aggravated parties often have to make use of less orthodox means, like the trial to protect constitutional rights. In this work, we implemented a deep analysis on this legal tool on those mayor cases that’s been used as a mean to protect the environment, with the objective of determining it’s reach and efficacy. After a deep scrutiny of Mexican environmental law, as well as the main case law that exits on this matter, we concluded that, even if it has certain limitations, like the need to exhaust all other legal resources before it, the constitutional rights trial proves to be an effective legal tool through which citizens can demand their human right to a clean environment, as its stated on the fourth article on Mexican constitution.