By default, as mandated in CSS2, attribute selectors only consider attributes explicitly specified for an element. However, it is possible to force attribute selectors to also consider default attribute values defined in the DTD, W3C XML Schema or RELAX NG schema. To do this, simply add "@use-default-attribute-values;" at the top of the CSS file.

DITA example:

@use-default-attribute-values;

*[class~="topic/body"] {
    display: block;
    margin-left: 12pt;
}