Tech Central Station has a very original article up about Batman and that pesky moral code of his.

All things super must act outside - but not necessarily against - the law. Batman will spill not one drop of blood of a man who breaks laws, but he will rain hot CGI-generated death upon those who would break law itself. The distinction between heroism and terrorism rests on that difference.

Just as rogue ninja cults make local justice impossible, so, too, do rogue nations make moral communities impossible. Totalitarian dictatorships are famous for offering "citizens" the choice between a moral death and a compromised life lived in the thrall of evil men and evil deeds. Every government will act wrongly at some point, but a rogue nation exterminates those forces that halt and correct the ordinary evils of the world. Such evil is not amenable to the ordinary exercises of influence. To a nation that exterminates its own people, words like "sovereignty" and "rule of law" are punch lines, not deterrents. Expecting the United Nations or the Popular Opinion of Rich Western Countries to stop rogue nations is like expecting the Gotham City Police to catch the Joker: it won't happen, but we'll get lots of dead bodies and grisly laughs along the way.