[LINK] "The Avengers: S.H.I.E.L.D."

[rfmcdonald]

Ryan Davidson, over at Law and the Multiverse, has an essay analyzing the Avengers' S.H.I.E.L.D.

He comes to the conclusion that, as depicted, makes most sense to see the organization as an American one with token representation from allies.

On balance, from a legal perspective and making allowances for artistic license, it would be better if S.H.I.E.L.D. were an American organization. Movies pretty consistently ignore what would be acts of war in the real world, even in non-speculative/comic book political and military thrillers. So if we give them a pass on that bit, the way S.H.I.E.L.D. acts a lot of the time really looks like a domestic military force. There’s still a problem though, given that The Council does appear to have members from multiple nations, but there might actually be a way of fixing that. There isn’t actually any obvious reason the U.S. couldn’t start a military force completely under domestic authority but, in a spirit of international cooperation, permit representatives from select foreign nations to participate in its operations. Given that S.H.I.E.L.D. is involved in some pretty hairy and advanced weapons R&D, this might actually be a decent way of convincing our allies to support the project, as they could exercise some control over the organization, trying to keep it focused on extra-terrestrial threats. This is, of course, not discussed in the movie at all, but there isn’t any obvious reason it couldn’t work.