Judges at the highest U.N. 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 programme 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 programme) 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 programme 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.