Glenn Wiser, Senior Consulting Attorney

Glenn Wiser is a senior consulting attorney at CIEL, where he has worked since 1998 on climate change, biological diversity, and intellectual property issues. Mr. Wiser's current focus at CIEL is on the development and implementation of multilateral instruments and processes related to the control of toxic chemicals, including persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such as dioxins, PCBs, and DDT.

He has been an active participant in negotiations on Capitol Hill to develop the U.S. implementing legislation for the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, and has testified twice before congressional committees on the issue. Mr. Wiser serves as a member of the Steering Committee of the International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN) and as an NGO advisor to the Standing Committee of the Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety (IFCS). He has also been seconded to the secretariat of the Rotterdam Convention on Prior Informed Consent as an expert advisor on financial mechanisms under multilateral agreements.

During negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Mr. Wiser served as the chair of the Climate Action Network (CAN) working group on compliance and was generally considered the lead NGO expert and spokesman on the development of the Protocol's compliance system. Along with CIEL attorney David Downes, Mr. Wiser represented the Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA) in their efforts before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to have the notorious ayahuasca patent cancelled. Mr. Wiser has authored or co-authored numerous articles and papers on international environmental law and policy.

Mr. Wiser earned his J.D. in 1998 from Georgetown Law Center, and graduated summa cum laude in 1991 from the University of Maryland with a BA in music. Before law school, he worked as a legal assistant in a small Maryland law firm, and as a full-time guitarist performing in dance clubs locally and in Los Angeles.

When Glenn is not engaged in chemical reform efforts at the international level, he and his family help clean-up Turkey Branch Creek in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Mr. Wiser can be reached at gwiser@ciel.org.