I mean, there is no need to learn them for the CFA exam. You can learn them when you have to apply them, for the specific industry/country you’re in, agreed there.
And again, the Code of Ethics is stricter than any and all laws, as you HAVE to apply the strictest of all possible alternatives. If you truly acted in like with the Code, you will have no trouble in a court of law.
Yes, ethics is not something you’re obliged to do - if you’re an independent investment professional you can act as unethically as the law allows if you want. But as long as you want to be a CFA Charterholder, you are obligated to follow the CFA Code and Standards.
You’re also not obliged to become a Charterholder but part of becoming a Charterholder is holding yourself to a higher standard than other investment professionals. Professionals who are morally and ethically sound are desired by both employers and clients, and in that regard it gives Charterholders a competitive advantage.
If you’re looking for a more dumbed down explanation, in life, there’s no reason you can’t be a POS and rude to people, but that kind of behavior has a trickle down effect on the rest of your life. So while there’s no law that says don’t be a POS, society generally places a high value on non-POS members.
* In studying for the exam and looking at problems, part of what the CFAI appears to be doing is to make us learn where the line (which is sometimes very subtle) between ethical and unethical behavior. So, asking questions like this and figuring out the answer seems to be something we are asked to do and in fact will be helpful in real life (which is often very grey).
* Maybe there are loopholes in the rules (if you write enough rules down, there most certainly will be some). So, asking what they are and figuring out if the rules should be changed/updated to close those loopholes is actually a very valuable and important thing (there are whole committees of experts dedicated to such tasks).
The specific question on when you are and aren’t a candidate and what that means has actually occurred to me as well. I’m pretty sure I understand the intent of the rules, but the whole you stop being a candidate after you get your result and before you sign up for the next exam is a weird result, but it does seem to be what the rules say. Maybe there’s a reason why they do this, but it’s a weird limbo state to be able to say you passed level 1 (which is factual), but not be able to say that you’re a CFA candidate (assuming you haven’t yet signed up for Level 2; yeah, you haven’t, but you did pass level 1 so you must have some level of “candidacy” at least in the common sense meaning of the word)