The Center for Human Rights Studies (CHR), one of the constituent units of the College of Law and Governance Studies, is a human rights institute engaged in teaching, research and community services in an interdisciplinary setting. Initially, the program was designed as a joint program in Peace, Federalism and Human Rights in collaboration with the Center for Federal Studies and the Institute of Peace and Security Studies.

Through the PhD program, the Center aims to meet the needs of national development through the provision of independent researches of high international calibre pursued in accordance with recognized scientific and ethical principles in the field of human rights. Accordingly, the Program provides a well-planned teaching and learning package and has the objective of qualifying candidates for research and other works requiring focused, rigorous and high levels of scientific insight and analytical thinking in the field of interdisciplinary human rights.

Since its launch in 2011, the Center enrolled 43 PhD students (in 10 rounds). It has also graduated 13 number of students. Currently, 20 number of students are enrolled. In meeting with the spirit of Article 66 of the AAU Senate Legislation, the Center for Human Rights has reorganized the PhD program. The newly redeveloped program was launched in 2017.