Human rights are one of the most controversial and widely discussed ideas in contemporary politics, ethics, and law. In recent decades, the philosophy of human rights has become one of the most lively areas in philosophy. In his book, On Human Rights, and in other work, Griffin has defended the view that contemporary judicial understandings of human rights rest on an insecure theoretical basis. This has had the result that the language of human rights has been over-extended, and consequently has less force where it really matters. On Griffin's view, human rights are best understood as protections of our agency and personhood, and he argues his case with reference to many real-life human rights cases.