AKIPRESS.COM - The group that conducts Japan's whaling says it expects to resume scientific whaling in the Antarctic after this year's hunt was canceled following an order by an international court.

Last month's judgment by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered a halt to Japan's decades-old program of "scientific whaling" in the Southern Ocean, a practice environmentalists condemn, but Tokyo said it would abide by the decision and has canceled the 2014-2015 hunt.

But court papers filed in the United States by the Institute for Cetacean Research, which, with Kyodo Senpaku, actually carries out the whaling, said they expect to conduct hunts in future seasons - albeit with a modified program.

In the filing in a Seattle court last week, the two groups sought an injunction against Sea Shepherd, an environmental group that has pursued Japan's whaling ships during their Antarctic hunts over the past few years. They noted that the Japanese government had not granted permits for the next season.

"Plaintiffs expect they will be conducting a Southern Ocean research program for subsequent seasons that would be in accord with the ICJ decision," they added, according to the papers, which were obtained by Reuters.