The Tokyo High Court turned down the appeal, which had previously been rejected by a lower court.
A Korean woman forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military in the 1930s has lost her court battle for compensation.
The Tokyo High Court turned down the appeal, which had previously been rejected by a lower court.
The woman, who lives in Japan, began her quest for an apology and compensation from the Japanese Government seven years ago.
It was a bitter end to a high profile legal battle that challenged Japan's refusal to compensate former sex slaves of the imperial army.
Disappointed
Song Shin-do, now 78 years old, was one of about 200,000 Asian women conscripted into brothels by Japanese troops in the nineteen-thirties and forties.
She said she was bitterly disappointed by the court's rejection of her case.
"I didn't expect such a decision," said Miss Song. "I have fought for seven, eight years. And it's all meaningless. I am an old woman. What can I do
now?"
Miss Song had been demanding a public apology from the government and $100,000 in compensation.
The judge acknowledged that she had suffered at the hands of the military but he said the statute of limitations on the government's legal responsibility had expired.
Raped
Miss Song was 16 when she was taken from her home in Korea and forced into a Japanese army brothel in China.
For the next seven years she says she was repeatedly raped by Japanese troops.
She is one of a small number of former comfort women, as they were known by the Japanese troops, who came forward with their stories in the early 1990s.
The Japanese Government initially rejected their allegations but later admitted the military authorities had systematically forced large numbers of Asian women into brothels.
It helped set up a private fund to help the women but it says all official compensation claims were settled in the bilateral peace treaties it signed in the years after the Second World War.
Most Japanese courts have so far backed its stance.