Abstract

Judgment Irreversibility Theorem (JIT) formalizes a foundational limit of risk governance in non-standard operations: when a decision enters a zone of high irreversibility, judgment authority cannot be safely delegated to processes, systems, or collective structures.

Anchored in the Irreversibility–Judgment Human–Augmented Systems (IJ-HJAS) framework and operationalized through Irreversibility-First Risk Governance (IFRG) and the Irreversibility-Weighted Judgment Loop (IWJL), this theorem explains why workflows, contracts, and institutional diffusion systematically fail under high-irreversibility conditions.

The theorem establishes irreversibility as the primary ordering variable of governance design and demonstrates that effective risk control in the Cognitive Split Era requires explicit judgment ownership, loop-level exit design, and structural isolation prior to action execution.