Japan Cancels Whale Hunt Off Antarctica After Ruling

Japan canceled this year’s whale hunt off Antarctica on Wednesday, ending an annual hunt that had drawn worldwide criticism just days after an international court ruled against the killings.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he would comply with the court order, although the ministry in charge of the hunt appeared to leave Japan some wiggle room for the future by canceling the hunt only for this year. It leaves open the possibility that Japan may try to revive the program under different legal reasoning.

The hunt had been conducted within a loophole in a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling that allowed killings for research purposes. The ruling by the International Court of Justice in The Hague on Monday said that the scientific output from Japan’s whaling program in Antarctica “to date appears limited” and suggested that the hunt was continued because of politics, rather than science.

While the hunt is not widely popular in Japan, it is backed by a vocal group of nationalistic lawmakers who paint opponents as trampling Japanese culture.

Mr. Abe expressed his disappointment in the ruling during a meeting with members of the Japanese government legal delegation. Koji Tsuruoka, the head of the delegation, told reporters that Mr. Abe had “sternly reprimanded” him for losing the case.

However, Mr. Abe also told them that Japan will abide by international legal rulings, echoing comments made earlier by other Japanese officials. Analysts have said Japan may have no choice but to obey the court at a time when the nation is calling on China to adhere to international legal norms in a heated territorial dispute over islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries.

The cancellation of the Southern Ocean hunt this year does not cover the smaller-scale killing of whales in the northern Pacific under a program that Japan also says is for research.