'This is not international law': international tax law and the disciplinary boundaries of international law

International tax law, as an academic field, is traditionally viewed as lying outside the broader discipline of international law. This makes international tax law an interesting case for exploring the disciplinary boundaries of international law and their manifestations. This article argues that the apparent separation between international tax law and international law can be linked to a series of choices made by international law scholars and international tax law scholars in the 20th century that contributed to the compartmentalization of the two scholarly communities. By shedding light on such a compartmentalization, this article hopes to encourage more dialogue between today’s international law and international tax law scholars. If social dynamics indeed play a key role in the emergence of subfields of international law, then such a dialogue could lead to a rethinking of the disciplinary boundaries of international law.