Japanese Bar Examination Questions and Student Preferences: Why Do More Students Choose Insolvency Law over Public International Law and Why Does It Matter?

Abstract

This article analyses the Japanese Bar Examination and the reasons behind student preferences for mainstream elective questions on the examination, which do not involve international law. Based on the translation of two elective questions from the 2012 bar examination and a textual analysis of those questions, the article argues that the form and content of the questions examined are not particularly different from hypothetical questions examined in other jurisdictions and aren’t key drivers for student choices. Rather, primary resources written by students suggest that they are driven by practical and immediate considerations to choose mainstream subjects such as insolvency law over subjects such as public international law. Those reasons include available materials, advice from stakeholders such as cram schools, pass-rates from previous examinations, and perceptions about future employability. The conclusion confirms the difficulty of incorporating international law and other perspectives into already crowded law curricula, particularly in light of the ultra-competitive bar examination. This conclusion is important, because it reflects a failure for one of the key goals of Japanese legal education reforms in 2004: internationalization (kokusai-ka) and producing lawyers capable of competing in international markets. A lack of interest and knowledge about public international law also has potential implications for the use of international law in domestic advocacy. The Japanese narrative also marries with other commentaries about the declining interest from Japanese society in internationalising despite this policy concept being heavily sponsored by parts of the Japanese government. The failure to reform the bar examination and lower-than-expected pass-rates contributes significantly to this outcome, however, and the article concludes by suggesting a key reform to the content of the examination.