Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's call for a more effective United Nations Refugee Convention is more about politics than real reform, legal experts say.
Rudd has implied the government might call for the 62-year-old agreement to be modified to reflect current movements of displaced people.
This could make it easier for Australia to reject refugee applications from those it deems to be economic migrants rather than persons fleeing persecution or war.
The convention was introduced in 1951 to protect Europeans fleeing World War II and was updated in 1967 to remove geographical and time limits.
Australia was among the first nations to ratify the convention in 1954. The agreement defines who is a refugee, their rights and the obligations of states that receive them.
William Maley, director of Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy at the Australian National University, says Rudd would need to first notify UN General-Secretary Ban Ki-moon to request changes to be made to the convention.
The issue would then be up for a vote by the General Assembly, which is dominated by poorer and less developed countries.
"That's where you would hit a roadblock," Prof Maley told AAP.
"The majority of states in the General Assembly are most unlikely to be sympathetic to rich countries with a relatively light burden of refugee movements compared to those which developing countries carry."
The very requirement for the General Assembly to decide on changes to the convention is a safeguard against attempts by rich countries to relieve themselves of refugee burdens, Prof Maley explained.
The other option for the prime minister would be to revise Australia's interpretation of its obligations under the convention.
But such a declaration would not change Australia's Migration Act, which defines refugees according to the UN Refugee Convention.
Prof Maley said Mr Rudd's recent call may have more to do with politicking rather than bringing about real change.
Adjunct associate researcher at Monash University, Adrienne Millbank, believes Australia should withdraw from the convention altogether.
"For some reason the politicians seem too scared to get out of the convention or even put it on hold," she said.
Millbank said the convention was outdated, legitimised irregular movement of people and worked against the interests of refugees and receiving countries.
She pointed out that only about 70,000 to 90,000 refugees are identified each year by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as most in need of third-country resettlement out of about 10 million displaced people worldwide.
While Millbank welcomed a debate about the convention, she dismissed Rudd's comments as an attempt to neutralise the asylum seeker issue before announcing the federal election date.
"I don't think that it's going to achieve much in the way of stopping the boats," Millbank said.
Immigration expert Dr James Jupp said the convention was acting as a magnet for signatory countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, in a region where most transit countries don't recognise the status of refugees.
He said the Gillard and Howard governments had tried many tricks to avoid honouring their obligations under the convention, like excising the Australian mainland from the migration zone.
Amnesty International's refugee spokesman Graeme McGregor agreed it would be difficult to convince developing countries, who host more than 80 per cent of the world's refugees, to support changes to the convention.
He said the UN agreement is still very effective in affording rights to asylum seekers.
"The principles within it of non-discrimination of not punishing asylum seekers ... are really, really valuable things," McGregor said.
"Any review that threatens to undermine those values would certainly be something we'd oppose."
The UNHCR was unavailable for comment.
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