Just how successful the ICC action will be is unclear. Egypt is one of the few countries that have not accepted the ICC’s jurisdiction. However, Mr. Dixon and other members of the legal team said the court can act if it receives a declaration from the government accepting the court’s jurisdiction in a particular case. They argued that Mr. Morsi’s government is the still only legitimate ruler in Egypt and it has issued that declaration to the ICC.
“We hope, and we have good reason to believe, that the court will take this declaration seriously,” said John Dugard, a human rights lawyer from South Africa who is involved with the case and who has also worked with the United Nations.
Gidon haviv suggests on Twitter that perhaps the Brotherhood will argue that it can accept the ICC’s jurisdiction on an ad hoc basis, because it remains the legitimate government of Egypt. That’s clever, but I would be shocked if the OTP would be willing to wade into that particular political thicket. If it refused to accept Palestine’s ad hoc acceptance, which I think would have been legally more straightforward (Shaviv disagrees), I think there is no chance it would accept the Brotherhood’s.
With respect to Dugard, I think the Brotherhood’s efforts are doomed to fail. Had the Morsi government filed its declaration while it was still in power (as in the Cote d’Ivoire situation), that would have been one thing. But it didn’t — and although there are interesting political questions about the legitimacy of the military-led coup/revolution, I don’t think there is much question that the Brotherhood is no longer the government of Egypt. A number of states have condemned the Egyptian military’s actions (see Wikipedia here for a nice rundown pro and con), but none to my knowledge have refused to recognize the Mansour government. And just as importantly, representatives of the Mansour government have continued to represent Egypt at the UN.
Readers who know more about the recognition of governments after coups/revolutions should feel free to weigh in. But even if I’ve understated the legal strength of the Brotherhood’s position, I still find it inconceivable that the OTP will conclude that it has jurisdiction over the situation in Egypt. At the very least, the OTP will likely do what it did with Palestine’s ad hoc declaration — say that the issue is for the Assembly of States Parties, not the Office of the Prosecutor, to resolve.
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http://opiniojuris.org/2014/01/06/muslim-brotherhood-wrongly-believes-icc-can-investigate/