This Issue in focus provided brief background information for the discussions during Workshop No. 3 “Judicial cooperation with third States” in the context of the strategic meeting on drug trafficking held by Eurojust on 29 and 30 September 2014.

Following a short explanation of the reasons for the selection of this topic and the methods followed to prepare the background information, this paper is structured into three main sections focusing on: i) Analysis of Eurojust’s casework (quantitative and qualitative), ii) Mapping of Eurojust’s contact points vs. key drug trafficking areas as identified in Europol’s Serious Organised Crime Threat Assessment (SOCTA), and iii) Selected recommendations from a recent study sponsored by the European Commission on judicial cooperation, mutual legal assistance and extradition of drug traffickers and other drug-related crime offenders, among the Member States of the European Union and Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries (hereinafter the “European commission study”).