AUSTRALIAN Foreign Minister Bob Carr is being urged to speak out against Papua New Guinea's planned implementation of the death penalty during his visit to the Pacific Island nation on Friday.

The government of Peter O'Neill announced this week a plan to activate PNG's dormant death penalty sentence for violent crimes such as murder, and said cabinet had discussed introducing death by firing squad as a humane method of execution.

The policy announcement comes after a public outcry in PNG and internationally following a spate of murders and rapes across the country.

Senior lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre Daniel Webb says the strict penalty will not deter violent criminals.

"Governments will not stop violence by perpetrating it themselves," he said in a statement on Thursday.

"Capital punishment is a violent and ineffective response to crime. For precisely these reasons, the international community continues to progress towards its abolition. Australia should be adding its voice to this push wherever and whenever it can."

Mr Webb said Australia's recent election to the UN Security Council was based on the promise to be a "principled advocate of human rights for all".

"Minister Carr should leave his PNG counterpart in no doubt that Australia is opposed to the death penalty at home and abroad," he said.

Senator Carr made his first trip to PNG in December last year, taking a trip to the Highlands with PNG foreign minister Rimbink Pato, as well as participating in ministerial talks between governments.

Saying he respected PNG's independence, he likened the relationship between the two countries to that of old friends.

"Old friends are the best friends and you have no older friend or better friend than Australia," he said at the time.

Among Mr O'Neill's proposed legal changes - which he said could be described as "draconian" - are life without parole for rape and strict minimum sentences for gun, drug and alcohol offences.

The legislative package - expected to be brought to parliament in mid-May - will also see the repeal of PNG's controversial sorcery act.

In early February 20-year-old mother Kepari Leniata was accused of witchcraft, stripped and burned alive in front of a crowd outside PNG's third largest town, Mt Hagen.

In April an elderly woman was beheaded after being accused of black magic.

Also in April, Australian Robert Purdy, 62, was murdered and his friend sexually assaulted by a group of men.

Just a week later a US Academic was pack raped after her husband and their guide were ambushed on an island.

While PNG law allows for hanging, it has not been used on anyone.

There are currently 10 people on death row in PNG.