Scott was born at Kincardine, Ontario, Canada. He was educated at Harvard University (A.B., 1890; A.M., 1891). As Parker fellow of Harvard he traveled in Europe and studied in Berlin, Heidelberg (J.U.D.), and Paris. Following his return to the United States, he practiced law at Los Angeles, Cal. from 1894 to 1899. He founded the law school at the University of Southern California, and was its dean, though his participation in the Spanish-American War interrupted that role. He was dean of the college of law at the University of Illinois (1899-1903), professor of law at Columbia, and professor of law at George Washington University (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. He served as secretary of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 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).

He edited and translated of Francisco de Vitoria the

• "De Indis recenter inventis" and "De iure belli" (1917).

Iacobus Brown Scott