Joint criminal enterprise is a liability doctrine mainly developed by the prosecutors and judges of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Although joint criminal enterprise has several modes, the common point of all of them is for the prosecution to prove the following: that a certain group of persons had a common plan, intention or purpose to commit a crime, that the accused in some way participated in that plan and that the accused intended to achieve the objectives of the common plan. If the prosecution succeeds in proving the cumulative existence of those elements, the accused can be convicted of all the crimes committed within the framework of the common plan, including the crimes he did not intend to commit but which were a predictable consequence of the common plan. While on the one hand the practice of ICTY shows a great tendency towards the application of this institute, domestic legal experts frequently criticize its adoption and application, considering it rather imprecise, obscure, open to interpretation and therefore susceptible of various forms of abuse. There are plenty of arguments for and against joint criminal enterprise. The aim of the thesis is not to give preference to either of the arguments, but to provide the main information about its historical roots, key elements and modes developed by the ICTY practice, as well as the dilemmas concerning its application in practice.