The thing is FD could have had a good play with this.I'm not sure that there was really a concept of "international law" at the same time as privateers existed in significant numbers.
Sure, the French aren't going to be too bothered about an English privateer who raids Spanish trade ships ... but Spain will still hang them if they catch them.
At the moment it's a bit like Greenbeard, standing in the dock in Valencia, the prosecutor reading out the list of shipping lost at his hand, the judge asking how he pleads as a formality before the execution, and him saying "Tis true, I sunk those ships, but I did it all for the English" ... and the judge saying "The English? Spain's mortal enemy at sea?! ... Well, you're free to go."
If factions belonging to a superpower pooled bounties immediately rather than doing it locally (i.e. mess up an Imp system and all Imp stations exclude you on sight) then I think it would be much better, because then superpowers actually count for something and that being an Indy keeps your rep local.
At the same time, anarchies go Elite 84 levels of violence (so they are not the 'soft' option) and suddenly the lone indy systems start to actually feel alone.
My biggest gripe with the C+P is that it treats all system bounties hyper locally and nothing feels joined up, even though you have superpowers that would act like that umbrella linking them. Add to this you could then slot in powers from Powerplay to offset being indy and local into a proxy police force (sort of a more lose and player driven superpower of sorts).