American jurist and legal educator, one of the principal early advocates of international arbitration. He played an important part in establishing the Academy of International Law (1914) and the Permanent Court of International Justice (1921), both at The Hague.

Scott was the son of Scottish immigrants to North America who settled in Philadelphia when he was 10. Educated at Harvard (A.B., 1890; A.M., 1891) and at the universities of Berlin, Paris, and Heidelberg (J.U.D., 1894), Scott taught law at Columbia and Georgetown universities and was later dean of the law schools of the universities of Southern California and Illinois. He was solicitor to the U.S. Department of State (1906–10) and secretary of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (1910–40). A founder (1906) and president (1929–39) of the American Society of International Law, he also served as editor in chief of its journal, the first English-language periodical of its kind. He was a delegate to the peace conferences at The Hague (1907) and Paris (1919).