Human rights lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis, a long time advocate for the two Australian drug smugglers, told Fairfax Media that the global reaction to their deaths had meant the Indonesian government now seemingly had no desire to execute the surviving drug traffickers on death row.

President Joko Widodo said last year that 64 traffickers must die to stop Indonesia's drug scourge, but his attorney general has since announced it is not a priority.

"After the second batch of executions [including Chan and Sukumaran] they realised that enough is enough. They don't want to do the third one. That's my thinking," Professor Lubis said.

He had been astounded when travelling to the United States and Europe to find the death of the Australians was well known and deplored internationally.

"I thought it was only between Indonesia and Australia, but ... I got so much attention and so many inquiries from people world wide asking about the case," Professor Lubis said.

The Swiss government wanted to organise a seminar on the death penalty in Indonesia, a world conference on the subject was being organised in Norway next year, and academics in Holland and the United States were intent on questioning him about Chan and Sukumaran, Professor Lubis said.

So you have all this attention, you have all this action, and probably we have the momentum [in the campaign against the death penalty] ... They became martyrs."

Professor Lubis said president Mr Joko had last year been blinded by "nonsense" statistics from the country's anti narcotics agency, BNN, which asserted that 40 to 50 Indonesians were dying daily from drugs.

"Now I think [Mr Joko] realises that's not the case".

The outcry that came with the death of the Australians had surprised and alarmed the Indonesian elite.

"Now they realise how much they've had to pay for those executions," Professor Lubis said.

Asked if Australia could have done anything to change the outcome, Professor Lubis pointed to the Philippine prisoner, Mary Jane Veloso, who was due to be executed in the same "batch" as Chan and Sukumaran, but was saved with minutes to spare.

"I think the Philippines government has done it more tactfully. They were not that aggressive. They did all this person to person contact, communications," he said.

"Unfortunately, the Australian government, in the eyes of Indonesia, appeared to be too aggressive, in a way."

The Indonesian government and people had viewed the Australian media as "bullying", and Prime Minister Tony Abbott's comment linking the executions with Australia's $1 billion of tsunami aid to Indonesia was also a big mistake.

"That was a very unfortunate statement, you know, that was hurting the relationship ... I think that was the critical moment," Professor Lubis said.

In a speech at the University of Melbourne on Monday night, Mr Todung said the acceleration of executions in Indonesia was contrary to trends in south-east Asia. But he noted that draft legislation reforming Indonesia's criminal code provided the best opportunity in the near-term for Indonesia to at least restrict the application of the death penalty in Indonesia.

The draft code, which has languished in Indonesia's national parliament for years without being implemented, recommends that prisoners sentenced to death be eligible after 10 years for the penalty to be commuted to a life term or less if they show they are reformed and contrite.

Chan and Sukumaran would likely have been eligible for such a reduction if the law had been in place.

It also recommends that the death penalty no longer be considered as a "primary punishment", therefore being far more selectively used.

"Certainly, this is a compromise, a typically Indonesian response, but it may pave the way for future debate," Professor Lubis said.

"The new draft Criminal Code provides us with some optimism (or guarded optimism, at least). We should not rule out the possibility that, in line with the global trend of abolishing the death penalty, Indonesia will, eventually, follow suit."