Hiding in Plain Sight? Conceptualizations of Databases in Migration Law and International Tax Law

Databases are increasingly used in international law settings. This requires new strategies for those who want to critique international legal practices and their effects. In this essay, we claim that legal scholarship tends to conceptualize the database in ways that leave older and inadequate ideas of legal method(s) and sovereignty in the context of international law largely unquestioned or even serve to reinforce them. Further, we argue that these tendencies obstruct proper understandings of international legal practices and prevent adequate critique. To illustrate the extent of these tendencies, we provide examples from our own research areas: migration law and international corporate income tax law. We contend that empirical studies of how databases are used in these and other legal settings, can help demystify and rework well-established assumptions through which international law, and the database, are seen.