James Brown Scott, J.U.D. (June 3, 1866 – June 25, 1943) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 authority on international law.

Biography

Scott was born at Kincardine

Kincardine, Ontario

The Municipality of Kincardine is located on the shores of Lake Huron in the County of Bruce in the province of Ontario, Canada. It has a population of 12,000, and covers an area of 580 square kilometres...

, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. He was educated at Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 (A.B., 1890; A.M., 1891). As Parker fellow of Harvard he traveled in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and studied in Berlin

Humboldt University of Berlin

The Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities...

, Heidelberg (J.U.D.), and Paris. Following his return to the United States, he practiced law at Los Angeles, Cal.

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

  from 1894 to 1899. He founded the law school at the University of Southern California

University of Southern California

The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

, and was its dean, though his participation in the Spanish-American War

Spanish-American War

The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence...

 interrupted that role. He was dean of the college of law at the University of Illinois

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...

 (1899-1903), professor of law at Columbia

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

, and professor of law at George Washington University

George Washington University

The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...

 (1905-06). In 1907 he was expert on international law to the United States delegation at the Second Hague Peace Conference. In 1909 Professor Scott lectured at Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins University

The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...

. He served as secretary of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is a foreign-policy think tank based in Washington, D.C. The organization describes itself as being dedicated to advancing cooperation between nations and promoting active international engagement by the United States...

, and wrote several works on the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 (1908, 1909, 1915). Besides serving as editor in chief of the American Journal of International Law and as editor of the American Case Book, and writing numerous articles on international law and the peace movement.
He also was the champion of the Spanish school of international law of the 16th century, claiming that writers like Francisco de Vitoria and Suarez had already said about that department of the law what about a century later was stated by Hugo de Groot in his De iure belli ac pacis (About the law of war and peace). He published:

• Cases on International Law (second edition, 1908)
• Cases on Quasi Contracts (1905)
• Cases on Equity Jurisdiction (two volumes, 1906)
• Argument of Senator Root in the Fisheries Arbitration (1911}
• The State of the International Court of Justice (1914).