The Assembly, in its plenary meetings which are not part of the six Main Committees, adopted 55 resolutions. Among them was the United
Nations Convention against Corruption, a path-breaking Convention that took 130 UN Member delegations two years to draft. Under its ambit is public procurement, bribery, illicit enrichment, embezzlement, misappropriation, money laundering, protecting whistle-blowers, freezing of assets and cooperation between States. Addressing the Assembly, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that the treaty "makes a major breakthrough by requiring Member States to return assets obtained through corruption to the country from which they were stolen".

Another resolution, Promotion of religious and cultural understanding, harmony and cooperation, was adopted without a vote. Through this text, the Assembly welcomed the efforts of States, relevant entities of the United Nations system and other intergovernmental organizations, civil society, including religion-based and other non-governmental organizations, and the media in developing a culture of peace. The Assembly encouraged them to promote inter-religious and intercultural interaction through congresses, conferences, seminars, workshops and research.

Other resolutions adopted outside the Assembly's Main Committees included: Assistance in Mine Action, to "foster establishment and development of mine-action capacities in affected countries"; Towards global partnerships between the United Nations and all relevant partners, in particular the private sector, "to meet the challenges of globalization"; and Safety and security of humanitarian personnel and protection of United Nations personnel, by which the Assembly "strongly condemned any act or failure to act that obstructed or prevented UN and other humanitarian personnel from discharging their humanitarian functions" and expressed "deep concern that threats against the safety and security of United Nations and other humanitarian workers have escalated at an unprecedented rate over the past decade".

Acting on recommendations of the First (Disarmament and International Security) Committee, chaired by Jarmo Sareva of Finland, the Assembly adopted the resolution Improving the effectiveness of the methods of work of the First Committee. It requested the Secretary-General to compile and organize States' views on making the Committee more effective, in light of threats to world peace post-September 11. The Assembly voted on 29 of the 52 resolutions recommended by the First Committee, adopting the remaining without a vote. The word "nuclear", covering aspects such as proliferation and reduction of non-strategic nuclear weapons, elimination of nuclear weapons, nuclear-weapon-free zones and ending of the nuclear arms race, figured in 14 resolutions. The Second (Economic and Financial) Committee, chaired by Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury of Bangladesh, recommended to the Assembly 37 resolutions, and all but two were adopted without a vote. Much of the debate revolved around meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), including halving by 2015 the number of people without access to safe drinking water; eliminating gender disparity in primary and secondary education; and developing a non-discriminatory trading and financial system. The Third (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) Committee, chaired by Martin Belinga-Eboutou of Cameroon, unanimously recommended a landmark instrument-the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime-which was adopted by the Assembly. The treaty had been designed as the international community's response to the increasing globalization of organized crime, and obliges States parties to incorporate the treaty provisions into their domestic laws. The Committee recommended 70 resolutions to the Assembly; all were adopted, 24 by a vote. Many concerned human rights in specific countries, self-determination issues, globalization and the benefits of development.

Non-Self-Governing Territories, the special political question of Western Sahara and peacekeeping operations in post-conflict societies were some of the areas dealt with by the Fourth (Special Political and Decolonization) Committee, chaired by Enrique Loedel of Uruguay. It recommended 22 resolutions to the Assembly, 10 relating to the Israeli and Palestinians conflict. The Fifth (Administrative and Budgetary) Committee, chaired by Hynek Kmonícek of the Czech Republic, recommended 32 resolutions, all adopted without a vote. It approved a total of $3.16 billion for the 2004-2005 UN budget and requested the Secretary-General to prepare, on a trial basis, a strategic framework to replace the current four-year medium-term plan with a plan outline reflecting the longer-term objectives of the Organization, as well as with a biennial programme plan.

The Sixth (Legal) Committee, chaired by Lauro L. Baja, Jr. of the Philippines, recommended 15 resolutions. It decided that the debate and voting on one text relating to the contentious topic of cloning should be postponed for a year, and another, on the draft comprehensive convention on international terrorism, was still being negotiated.

Also included in this Assembly session coverage is a report on the informal diplomacy behind the resolution titled "Support by the United Nations system of the efforts of Governments to promote and consolidate new or restored democracies" . The resolution, which was adopted by consensus with wide cooperation from Member States, had its beginnings in September 2003 in Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia, where the Fifth International Conference of New or Restored Democracies was held. The meeting focused on how international cooperation and UN assistance could help States on their path towards democratic governance.