Pre-Execution Admissibility: A Doctrinal Framework for Legitimacy Before Action

Modern governance systems rely primarily on post-execution accountability mechanisms, including explanation, attribution, and review after actions have already occurred. As systems increase in speed, autonomy, complexity, and irreversibility, these mechanisms no longer reliably govern outcomes or preserve meaningful human authority. This paper introduces the concept of Pre-Execution Admissibility, a doctrinal framework for determining whether actions should be allowed to exist in executable form prior to execution. The framework distinguishes legitimacy from outcomes, authorization, and compliance, and defines admissibility as a structural property grounded in exercisable authority, context sufficiency, scope containment, human viability, and refusal. The doctrine is non-operational and tool-agnostic. It does not propose implementation architectures or enforcement mechanisms. Instead, it articulates a missing governance layer applicable across domains that include autonomous systems, defense, critical infrastructure, finance, climate governance, and artificial intelligence. The intent is to provide shared language for upstream legitimacy assessment in environments where post-hoc accountability is no longer sufficient.