The Reminiscences of Zafrulla Khan — Page 206
190 REMINISCENCES OF SIR MUHAMMAD ZAFRULLA KHAN held, therefore, that Guatemala was under no obligation to recognize his Liechtenstein nationality and was within its rights to treat him as a German national and consequently, as an enemy alien when war broke out between Guatemala and Germany. It has become almost a rule that when a case is brought to the Court, the respondent state raises preliminary objections to the jurisdiction of the Court. When that happens, the Court must first take up that question and decide whether it has jurisdiction in the matter and only if it holds that it has, it goes on to have the pleadings completed and to hear arguments on the merits and to give judgement. The Portugal-India case went through both these phases. Portugal claimed a right of passage between coastal Daman and two small enclaves inside, which right of passage, it alleged, India had obstructed and had thereby been guilty of a breach of international obligation. India raised six preliminary objections to the jurisdiction of the Court. Four of these the Court overruled; two were joined to the merits. After hearing arguments on the merits, the Court overruled these two objections also, and held that Portugal had succeeded in establishing a right of passage for its nationals, for civilian officials and for goods and merchandise, but had not succeeded in establishing a right of passage with respect to armed forces or armed police or arms and ammunition. On the question whether India had or had not been guilty of breach of international obligation by refusing all passage, the Court held that in view of the exercise of the right of passage, in the circumstances then prevailing, the apprehended effect upon its own internal law and order situation, India had not been guilty of any breach of obligation in denying all passage. Portugal had conceded that the exercise of the right of passage was subject to the control of the territorial sovereign and that apprehension of adverse effect upon its own law and order position by the grant of right of passage was a sufficient justification for a suspension of the right of passage. Another case that established an important principle of international law, was the boundary case between Honduras and Nicaragua. In 1904, Honduras and Nicaragua had agreed to appoint His late Majesty, King Alfonso XIII of Spain as arbitrator in connection with their attempt to settle the boundary between them. A commission which both sides had appointed for that purpose had demarcated the boundary, beginning from the Pacific to within a few hundred kilometres of the Atlantic; but