The Comics Iron Man/Tony Stark's legal authority as SHIELD Director

[Fantasyartist]

In a recent Avengers story, Tony Stark and his fellow Avengers not only practically invade Latveria (shades of Iraq!) but Iron Man announces to the country's ruler Dr Doom that in he is under arrest for "terrorist crimes against humanity" based on his authority as SHIELD Director.

Doom replies contemptuously that he refuses to accept such an arrest as he is a sovereign ruler.
( Shades of Saddam Hussein and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir!)
I'm confused here- doesTony/Iron Man HAVE such authority to arbitrarily arrest heads of state or is he acting on an arrest warrant issued by a federal court( as the then Administration refused to approve of the International Criminal Court as it allegedly "infringed on American sovereignty", I doubt he was doing so on behalf of the ICC)? Are the Avengers empowered to invade countries at will and seize their rulers on charges of "crimes against humanity"? ( if they can do so in fictional Latveria then why not also in real life Sudan?!) have "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" become "Uncle Sam's superpowered bully boys"? First it's Doom then next it might be Hugo Chavez or Vladimir Putin!

Please clarify!

Terry

 

[Johan]

Wow, no answers? C'mon guys, that's an interesting topic!
But agreed, it's not easy. This is the problem I have with mainstream comic books since roughly 2005. We can't know. The author just trows heroes into legal position without making any research or explaining anything. In the end, is Stark supposed to be like the director of the CIA or FBI? Does he have the same kind of authority? I don't know. Just like we don't know if arresting people because of racial differences (Mutants, aliens ... cyborgs? XD) during the Civil War arc was legal or no. Me I say it was illegal and the country should have been thrown into a hell worse civil war if it had be written by a better author.
So in my opinion, if Doom didn't sign any treaty acknowledging the authority of the SHIELD, and I'm sure he never did that, then Stark went over his head on this one.