Others followed suit gradually, and during the short-lived "Damascus Spring" a decade ago, Syrian intellectuals signed the Declaration of the 99, a call for greater civil rights and openness.
There are intellectual precedents to the Declaration.
Publishers Weekly called the book "an ardent manifesto" and a "provocative declaration of intellectual and political independence".
The rationalising French philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries laid the intellectual ground for the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution.
It effectively raises a middle finger to the 169 signatories to the Hamburg Declaration on Intellectual Property Rights, including Dow Jones managing editor Robert Thomson and News Corp Europe CEO James Murdoch, who, facing declining revenues, protest: "Numerous providers are using the work of authors, publishers and broadcasters without paying for it".
Some 300 prominent intellectuals have signed a declaration protesting any attempt to expunge reference to the republic's Turkish character.
But, on the face of it, the Doha deal is still a big win for poor countries.First, they scored a coup with a declaration that intellectual-property rules should not stop poor countries gaining access to cheap medicines.
In 1985, after a day of black asphyxiating smog over the capital city, Mr. Aridjis rallied 100 Mexican artists and intellectuals to sign a declaration telling the government, "This contamination is killing us all".
Kanan Makiya, a professor at Brandeis University and a leading Iraqi intellectual who helped draft the declaration for the conference, said the exile groups did not want an American military ruler.
Intellectual property rights, the Doha declaration said, should not stymie efforts to "promote access to medicines for all .Unfortunately, not every poor country can emulate Brazil's success, because not every country that needs anti-AIDS drugs can make them itself.
