I don't know what can be done short of putting weapons and soldiers on every ship.
The area that is subject to these pirates is supposedly as big as the US Eastern Seaboard. That's a lot of area to patrol.
The boats they use are small, so they are needles in a giant haystack.
Also, most countries with navies don't really care until one of their own ships/crews gets taken. We didn't care until and American crew got grabbed.
And, let's not forget the most important factor -- business.
"Like any business, Somali piracy can be explained in purely economic terms. It flourishes by exploiting the incentives that drive international maritime trade. The other parties involved — shippers, insurers, private security contractors, and numerous national navies — stand to gain more (or at least lose less) by tolerating it than by putting up a serious fight. As for the pirates, their escalating demands are a method of price discovery, a way of gauging how much the market will bear." -- Wired
http://www.wired.com/politics/security/ ... li_pirates
Click the link to read a good explanation of the economics involved with Somali Piracy. I guess sometimes crime does pay, and fighting crime does not.
CD