Abstract
The article examines the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa (TRC) 1 as a process for holding businesses accountable for human rights violations. The TRC convened special hearings in Johannesburg in November 1997 on the role of business under apartheid. Based on the evidence, white businesses should have applied for amnesty as perpetrators of human rights violations. But this did not happen. The article discusses the achievements and constraints of the business hearings, and examines some of the lessons which can be gleaned from the South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the continuing universal struggle to hold corporations responsible for human rights violations during authoritarian regimes.