Australian efforts towards ending the death penalty worldwide are gathering pace as drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran are mourned by family and friends.
Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs suggested Australia could link aid programs more directly to human rights, and called for the issue to be raised at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting this year.
While Ms Triggs focused on consensus building in the Asia Pacific as a first step, Human Rights Watch campaigner Elaine Pearson says Australia already has natural partners further afield.
These include France and the Philippines, whose nationals had been scheduled for execution last week alongside Chan and Sukumaran.
"We shouldn't only think about our region but some of our larger trading partners, like the US, Japan and China," Ms Pearson said.
Federal MP Philip Ruddock, convenor of Parliamentarians Against the Death Penalty, acknowledges the need for efforts to be consistent.
"It should be when our own nationals are involved, and when we are focused on executions elsewhere," he said.
The group of 40 MPs is looking to expand its membership and will meet Amnesty International before charting the way forward.
Mr Ruddock wants the death penalty raised at every bilateral meeting, including the next parliamentary delegation to China.
He has also reached out to the ambassador of the US, the world's fifth biggest executioner.
"If we are serious about this issue we have to raise it in good faith even with our closest allies," he said.
Interest in the issue is not only high in Australia right now, because of Chan and Sukumaran, but in the US, where recent studies have found at least four per cent of people on death row are probably innocent.
In Indonesia, the issue has been pushed on to the agenda not only by executions at home but abroad, with two domestic workers recently executed in Saudi Arabia.
Chan and Sukumaran's lawyer Julian McMahon says this is a moment for Australia to seize.
"It's in an excellent position, after its impressive efforts in the United Nations security council, to go on the front foot and bring together in a much more unified voice a coalition of all those disparate voices around the world fighting against the death penalty," he said.
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