Japan was ordered to stop hunting whales in the Antarctic

Judges at the highest UN court ordered Japan on Monday to halt whaling in the Antarctic, rejecting its long-held argument that the catch was for scientific purposes and not primarily for human consumption.

Tokyo said it was disappointed but would abide by the decision, while activists said they hoped it would bring closer a complete end to whaling around the world.

The International Court of Justice sided with plaintiff Australia in finding that the scientific output of the whaling program did not justify the number of whales killed.

The tribunal said no further licences should be issued for scientific whaling, where animals are first examined for research purposes before the meat is sold to consumers.

"The research objectives must be sufficient to justify the lethal sampling," said Presiding Judge Peter Tomka of Slovakia.

"In light of the fact the (research program) has been going on since 2005, and has involved the killing of about 3,600 minke whales, the scientific output to date appears limited."

Japan signed a 1986 moratorium on whaling, but has continued to hunt up to 850 minke whales in the icy waters of the Southern Ocean, as well as smaller numbers of fin and humpback whales, citing a 1946 treaty that permits killing the giant mammals for research.

Judges agreed with Australia that the research — two peer reviewed papers since 2005, based on results obtained from just nine killed whales — was not proportionate to the number of animals killed.

Japan was "deeply disappointed" by the ruling, but it would comply, said Koji Tsuruoka, the country's chief lawyer before the court. He said the government would need to study the ruling before taking any further action.

The judgment is an embarrassment to Japan, but Tokyo could continue whaling if it devised a new, more persuasive program of scientific research that required "lethal catch" of whales, or if it withdrew from the whaling moratorium or the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling.

Intense scrutiny

Whaling was once widespread around the world, but Japan is now one of only a handful of countries, including Iceland and Norway, that continue the practice on a large scale. The meat is popular with Japanese consumers who consider it a delicacy.

Norway, the other main whaling nation, in 1993 shifted away from scientific whaling to "commercial" catches, where the meat is sold directly to consumers.

The Norwegian Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries said "scientific research and catches for scientific purposes is of fundamental importance to any responsible fisheries nation and the court ruling will therefore be given due attention."

Norway set a quota of 1,286 minke whales in the north Atlantic in last year's summer hunt, saying stocks are plentiful in the region. Fishermen rarely catch the full quota, partly because demand has sunk in recent years.

Iceland and Norway do not say they are carrying out research, instead openly hunt whale meat for commercial purposes, meaning the ICJ's ruling has no immediate consequences for them. They have not signed up to a global moratorium on whaling agreed by other countries.

But activists said the ruling reflected a gradually changing climate that would put an end to whaling.

"Whaling is under immense scrutiny from the international community, and the pincer movement on these countries is ever tightening," said Claire Bass, wildlife campaigner at the World Society for the Protection of Animals.

(Additional reporting by Alister Doyle in Oslo; Editing by Anthony Deutsch and Alison Williams)