American political scientist and authority on international law known for classic studies of war and international relations.

Wright received his B.A. from Lombard College, Galesburg, Ill., in 1912 and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in 1915. He taught at Harvard University in 1916–19 and at the University of Minnesota in 1919–23. In 1923 he became professor of political science and in 1931 professor of international law at the University of Chicago. Wright served as an adviser to the U.S. Department of State in 1943–45 and to the International Military Tribunal in Nürnberg in 1945. Retired in 1956, he subsequently engaged in research and teaching at a number of U.S. and foreign institutions.

In 1942 Wright published A Study of War in two volumes, in which he examined the institution of war, historically, legally, and culturally, and concluded that war could best be eliminated through a world organization that had power adequate to its responsibilities. Wright's Study of International Relations (1955) presented arguments for a separate discipline of international relations. He was a supporter of the League of Nations in the 1920s and '30s, and he later opposed U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia.

Wright's other works include The Enforcement of International Law Through Municipal Law in the United States (1916), The Control of American Foreign Relations (1922), Mandates Under the League of Nations (1930), The Causes of War and the Conditions of Peace (1935), Problems of Stability and Progress in International Relations (1954), and The Role of International Law in the Prevention of War (1961).