Each office is registered as a separate legal entity under the laws of the country in which it is located. The office in Accra, Ghana, coordinates work in Africa and a small office in London acts as a liaison office. CHRI has since grown and is now a family of offices in Delhi, London and Accra. The shift in headquarters from London to New Delhi was a conscious decision, guided by the need to be based in the developing 'South'.

CHRI was founded on the consensus that, while Commonwealth countries had a common set of values and a forum from which to work, there was little focus on human rights issues. The CHRI was founded in 1987 by six existing Commonwealth NGOs: the Commonwealth Lawyers Association, Commonwealth Legal Education Association, Commonwealth Journalists Association, Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, Commonwealth Press Union and the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association. In 2017, the NGO consists of over 50 employees and interns, working in New Delhi, London, and Accra.

Across the 54 countries of the Commonwealth, it periodically monitors the progress and rollbacks of civil and political rights with the help of research, workshops, and cooperation with other civil society networks. The organisation mainly works in the South Asia, East Africa, and Ghana region.

The organisation specialises in transparency and accountability issues, with a focus on access to justice and access to information. ĬHRI's objectives are to promote awareness and adherence to the Commonwealth's Harare Declaration, to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to other internationally recognised human rights instruments, and to advocate for the domestic institutions supporting human rights in the Commonwealth member states. The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) is an independent, non-partisan and nonprofit international non-governmental organisation which works towards the practical realisation of human rights in the countries of the Commonwealth.

What is the purpose of the commonwealth