The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Korea (ROK) on Friday dismissed an appeal by a group of women forced to work in Japan's wartime military brothels to strike down an agreement signed by the two countries to settle claims over the abuse.

The ruling is expected to have little impact on the 2015 agreement, as it has been effectively abandoned by the ROK President Moon Jae-in, who has called it seriously flawed and inadequate in resolving the issue that has, for many years, been a source of rancor between the neighbors.

President of the Constitutional Court Yoo Nam-seok said the agreement was a political one that tried to resolve the comfort women issue, and, unlike a treaty between two countries, did not create legal responsibilities on the part of the governments.

Comfort women is a euphemism for the thousands of girls and women, most of them Korean, who were forced to work in Japan's brothels before and during World War II when Japan occupied Korea.

"It cannot be said that the rights of the victims of the Japanese military were infringed upon by this agreement," Yoo said in the court's ruling.

The 2015 agreement, reached by Moon's conservative predecessor, Park Geun-hye, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, was welcomed by the United States at the time as an important step toward reconciliation.

But surviving comfort women saw it as unjust. Twenty-nine of them and 12 of their families brought the constitutional petition.

They argued that it violated their rights, as they were not consulted when the governments agreed to close the matter as "irreversibly resolved" with an apology by Japan and a 1 billion yen (9 million U.S. dollars) fund to compensate the women.

"This could have been an opportunity to address their pain," said Rhee Dong-joon, a lawyer representing the women. "It is disappointing that the Constitutional Court failed to bring closure to their hurting."

The ruling comes after Moon and Abe held talks for the first time in 15 months on Tuesday on the sidelines of the eighth China-Japan-ROK leaders' meeting and stressed the need to improve ties after the worst period of tension between the countries in decades spilled into the trade arena.

(Cover: A statue of a girl representing the sexual victims of the Japanese military stands in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, the ROK, December 24, 2019. /Reuters Photo)