User blog comment:KennyChief/S.H.I.E.L.D. is a UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT organization, not International./@comment-996391-20151011104323/@comment-6127681-20151015162745

Also, I have some evidence that the Council, even if they were international, was not in charge of S.H.I.E.L.D. In Nothing Personal, it was revealed that Fury only ever took orders from Pierce, and not the rest of the council. Which makes sense, given that Pierce is American and the rest of the council are not. Another excellent point is that when Black Widow was dumping all the classified files onto the Internet, it's revealed that TWO Alpha-level members are required to authorize decryption. Pierce's equals on the council don't appear to hold that rank, despite being... you know... his peers. None of them, all of which are obviously anti-HYDRA and none of which make any objections to the dumping of the secret files, offer to help the Widow, probably because they can't: They just act as an advisory council to S.H.I.E.L.D., essentially prestigious cultural translators. It's not until Fury shows up that the files are decrypted.