12 MENNESSON v. FRANCE JUDGMENT conceived and the intended mother, and precluded, among other things, registration in the register of births, marriages and deaths of the details recorded in a birth certificate drawn up abroad ... It was on the basis of those provisions of the Civil Code and in accordance with that explicit case-law that the Court of Cassation concluded in the present case that the judgment of the Supreme Court of California of 14 July 2000 was contrary to the French concept of international public policy in that it gave effect to a surrogacy agreement and that the entries in the French register of births, marriages and deaths of the particulars of the birth certificates drawn up in application of that judgment should be annulled. In the Court’s view, the applicants could not therefore have been unaware that there was at least a substantial risk that the French courts would rule accordingly in their case, even if no provision of domestic law expressly precluded recognition of a legal parent-child relationship between the first and second and the third and fourth applicants, and notwithstanding the principle of the attenuated effect of public policy (which, moreover, the Conseil d’État considers inapplicable to this type of situation ...). The Court therefore finds that the interference was “in accordance with the law” within the meaning of Article 8 of the Convention. (b) Legitimate aims 59. The applicants observed that the public prosecutor’s office had, of its own initiative, requested registration of the US judgment delivered in their case and subsequently, several months after obtaining registration, applied to the domestic courts to have it annulled. They argued that, in the light of those contradictory actions, the French authorities could not be deemed to have pursued a legitimate aim. 60. The Government replied that the reason for the refusal to record the particulars of the US birth certificates in the French register of births, marriages and deaths was that this would have given effect to a surrogacy agreement, which was formally forbidden under a domestic public-policy provision and constituted a punishable offence if performed in France. French law accordingly reflected ethical and moral principles according to which the human body could not become a commercial instrument and the child be reduced to the object of a contract. In their submission, the “legitimate aims” of the interference were the prevention of disorder or crime, the protection of health and the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. They added that the reason the public prosecutor’s office had requested that the particulars of the birth certificates of the third and fourth applicants be recorded was precisely to enable it to request subsequently that these entries be annulled. In doing so it had complied with Article 511 of the general circular on civil status of 11 May 1999, which prescribed automatic registration where public policy was concerned, particularly