Joseph Bell

Joseph Bell is senior counsel at Hogan Lovells. His focus since 2004 has been on natural resource issues—policy and commercial. Working mostly pro-bono and principally in Africa and Asia, he has represented governments in mining and agricultural concession negotiations and has advised regarding tax and royalty policies, stabilization agreements and other economic issues related to large concessions. He has also advised with respect to the establishment of natural resource management funds and general issues of transparency and governance. He was one of the authors of the initial draft of the Natural Resource Charter.

He was an advisor in 1989-1990 to the Polish Ministry of Finance. In the same period, he co-founded the Project for Economic Reform in Ukraine. Later he established the Warsaw office of Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells). In 2014 the Polish government awarded him the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit for his support and work "at the initial and most difficult stage of [Poland's] transformation.”

Prior to private practice, he worked for the U.S. Justice and Treasury Departments, the Federal Energy Administration and the Cabinet Task Force on Oil Import Control. He also taught at the Duke Law and Public Policy Schools.

He is the former chair of the International Senior Lawyers Project, a founding director of the Polish American Freedom Foundation, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2010 he received the American Lawyer Life Time Achievement Award.